Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair calls to mind a Charles Dickens character in "Bleak House": "Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent mood. When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man, to have so inexhaustible a subject."
Blair popped up recently to deny that the lightning advance of the ruthlessly efficient ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) could be blamed on the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Rather, in his parallel universe, the fault lies in not intervening in Syria last year to topple President Bashar Assad.
Blair was widely ridiculed, especially as Western intervention would have effectively been in support of the extremists. Syria's military has been battling them with more fight and success than shown by Iraq's army after more than a decade of U.S. training.