It might feel like months, but we’re just over a week into the US and Israel’s illegal assault on Iran, and there’s no end in sight. What is in sight, though, is the apocalyptic vision of Tehran ablaze, wreathed in thick smoke as black oil-soaked rain falls on its inhabitants.

That’s the result of Israeli strikes on several oil storage depots in the city, reportedly sending burning petroleum running through gutters while geysers of flaming gas exploded from the streets.

A nightmare? For most of us, yes. But for former British prime minister Tony Blair it’s apparently a dream. One that he might have liked the entire British public to be non-consensually forced into realising for him. And not for the first time.

Were my hands bloodied with the deaths of up to a million people, I’d probably think twice before giving my opinion on yet another illegal US adventure in the Middle East. Not our Tone, though. On Sunday the papers reported that the man who told George W. Bush in the months before the disastrous Iraq war, “I will be with you, whatever”, is still singing the same old tune.

“We should,” Blair told a private Jewish News event on Friday night, “Have backed America from the very beginning”. That was a direct criticism of current prime minister Keir Starmer, who, to a chorus of warmonger criticism, initially refused the US and Israel access to British military infrastructure to launch its war on Iran. But it’s not like we’ve stayed completely out of the mess: our bases are now free for use by US jets for “defensive” actions – whatever that means – with American bombers already touching down.

Now, nobody was ever supposed to know that a former Labour prime minister so openly rubbished the current one in public. That’s because the event was conducted under Chatham House rules. In short, that means what’s said in the room can be made public, but not who said it. In long, it means elites are emboldened to express their heart’s true desires without any threat of accountability.

We can’t know what was in Tony Blair’s heart when he mourned the fact that the UK was not more involved in blasting a hole straight through the security of the hundreds of millions who live in the Middle East. Nor can we tell for sure, as global oil prices surge above $100 a barrel for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how little the lives of Brits, long blighted by a cost of living crisis, matter to him.

We can, though, look at his record. And what that shows – in my opinion – is a tendency, previously expressed via his businesses and nowadays his Tony Blair Institute, to see fatal discord as fiscal opportunity. Autocracy, oligarchy, calamity? Roll up, roll up: the Blair pitch project is in town, and it has some consultancy to sell.

Now, none of that is a crime. But you might think it indicates a conflict when wading into affairs of state. Blair is alleged to have form here too: in 2014, a number of former ambassadors and MPs called for his resignation as Middle East peace envoy for the Quartet (made up of the United Nations, the US, the EU and Russia). They claimed he was ineffective, while others noted the growth of his business interests in the region.

Blair’s financial arrangements have also been called, at times, mysterious. Less of a puzzle is who funds his current ventures. Larry Ellison – the billionaire founder of Oracle who, along with his son, is slowly gobbling up mainstream and social media platforms seemingly with the blessing of Donald Trump – has given hundreds of millions of dollars to Blair’s institute.

Coincidentally, the Tony Blair Institute appears to be pretty keen on promoting Ellison’s products to governments around the world – including the UK’s.

That may explain why Blair’s comments also reflect a dangerous loyalty to an old idea in a fast-changing world. “They are not just an ally, they are an indispensable ally, right?” he asked of our relationship to the US, before concluding, “If they are your ally and they are an indispensable cornerstone for your security… you had better show up.”

There’s never been a US lap Tony Blair wouldn’t perch on – and, given his comments, it seems there never will be. But I tend to doubt that future administrations across the pond would thank the UK for blindly emboldening a president who seems hell bent on drawing all of us ever closer to catastrophe. Let alone the US public – most of whom disapprove of the conflict and fear that years of war lie ahead.

They say those who haven’t learned from history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps those who’ve earned from it, even more so.

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