Tony Blair has committed British forces to action five times in six years. No British Prime Minister and few world leaders have come close in contemporary history. What is it about this deeply Christian man that has given him such a taste for war?

In BLAIR'S WARS, award-winning journalist John Kampfner gives the inside story of a man who came to office with no experience of -- and virtually no interest in -- foreign affairs but who quickly moulded himself into a man on a mission: to punish dictators and spread democracy across the globe. To do that he fell back on the basic tenets of British diplomacy, a yearning for friendship with the United States and a reliance on the armed forces, while proclaiming his vision in the more modern guise of liberal intervention.

This mission has taken Blair from the first air strikes against Iraq in 1998, at the time of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, to the Kosovo conflict of 1999; from the deployment of troops in Sierra Leone to George W. Bush’s attack on the Taleban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after September 11 -- and then on to the final and decisive war against Saddam Hussein.

Through conversations with the main players across governments in London, Washington, New York and European capitals, BLAIR'S WARS details the processes by which the Prime Minister has prosecuted these campaigns -- and why. It reveals in riveting fashion the failure of diplomacy that preceded the showdown with Saddam. It shows how Blair decided from the beginning of Bush’s presidency that he would allow nothing to get in the way of their close alliance; how he reconciled himself to war on Iraq at a very early stage; how he willed the intelligence material to conform to his plans; and how he dismissed the warnings of his diplomats that his approach would alienate him from countries he had so assiduously courted.

This is the story of a man who had convinced himself that his powers of persuasion could overcome all problems and defy all logic -- only to see those powers disappear.