I have been following at a distance Tony Blair's difficulties about the reasons Britain went to war with Iraq. And I have been squizzing his statements to the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr. Kelly. I noted that John Scarlett, the chairman of the joint intelligence committee, read a scrip prepared for him by Downing Street, and accepted the blame, and all the responsibility, for a faulty government intelligence report.

What secrets lurk in Whitehall? Can they be contained? Can they be dug out?

My concern is not those events in this post. It is more to do with the traces of empire in the complex historical experience we are now living; traces of old and new political structures that shape our conduct.

This is a long bow for some as the very language of empire will cause a recoil.

Let's take the surface bit. Blair protested his innocence at the Hutton inquiry. He said that he is a man of utmost honesty, that the BBC broadcast crucially challenged his integrity and so threatened his continuation as prime minister. Blair plays the conviction politician full of sincerity well. He is forever going on about moral renewal, moral order and moral responsibilities. He assumes that good will flow from his good intentions. His carefully crafted public image is that he does not have dirty hands as he is above the bloody business of politics. He justifies his actions with good intentions. Intentions count more than outcomes.

Unfortunately, Blair comes talking about his good intentions and leaves a trail of blood behind him.

He seems to love a good war involving dropping bombs on people. He talks about peace and goes to war. He talks about us and them. Calling the French veto on Iraq at the UN 'capricious' undermines his sincerity in upholding the international legal system.

The dirt that sticks to Blair is the way that the world of dirty politics of tabloid bruisers, political bullies and spin from the media machine continually mocks his good intentions. He tries to convince us that good consequences flow from good intentions. But we see the dirty hands.

Behind the carefully rehearsed performances is the reality of power. Blair like John Howard in Australia, stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans as junior partners assisting an imperial power in one of its wars. Both Britain and Australia had few geo-political interests in Iraq, and neither were seriously threatened by Iraq. For both of these conviction politicians American power is sacrosant. For them present-day American imperial power is a modernizing force of good in the world, as it is enlightened and altruistic.

What is left unsaid is the dark side. I have in mind the ruthless militancy of the American democracy, the demonology of the American nation state; the vast publicity machine that convinced around 50% of Americans that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in September 11; the severe onstraints on the discussion of the role of Israel in the Middle East; and the role of the media outlets of the Christian Coaltion and Israel lobby in fostering a hatred of Arabs and Muslims and equating them with evil.

Yet underneath the special alliance sits a conception of Britain as a global power with responsibilities East of Suez:---Britain's intervention in the Gulf has been continuous since 1991. You can sense the old imperial structure at work--- order and security with Britain playing e same role that Australia did for Britain: being the loyal provider of auxiliary cohorts of soldiers.

Empire! How that word resonates in post-colonial Australia. Let me give two examples.

The first one is the way that Britain and Australia are part of the same story of Empire. The great UK imperial structure may have been dismantled after 1945, along with the other empires that ruled Asia, but the effects of the imperial divide between colonizer and colonised can still be felt. Multicultural liberal Australia stands in opposition to the racist colonialism of the recent past, with its unspoken racist hierarchy. High culture in the UK (Mathew Arnold's sweetness and light) functioned to cover up and disguise the inhumane events in the Australian colonies. Reading for the unstated colonial assumptions is one way to read the Western cultural canon of Mathew Arnold, S. T. Coleridge and John Stuart Mill that spoke in terms of a civilising mission.

Today, there is a colonial reassessment going on about the destructiveness wrought by colonialism in Australia in terms of suffering and dispossession. This discourse says that the past is over and the time has come for the Aboriginal Australia to own up to its self-inflicted wounds. Those liberals who support the claim for a treaty are befuddled romantics. And aboriginal Australia cannot keep on blaming white colonial Australia for everything bad. The rhetoric of blame and guilt has to go.

But empire is not something in the past. Today we have the US empire. The US has mn moved from hegemony in the Middle East to empire. And we live the effect of this empire engaged in a civilising mission. Resistance to the US empire in the Arab/Muslim world is said to bred a barbarious and xenophobic anti-westernism--called Islamofascism that is out to destroy Anglo-American civilization. This mental grid covers over and obscures the diversity of the Arab diasporia in South-East Asia with its very different histories and cultures. The cultural grid that is locking into place constructs Arabs as deceptive, cunning and untrustworthy.

Australia has signed up as loyal allies who will provide troops to support an imperial war against any part of the Arab/Muslim world that defies the US and Israel. Iran is one with its nuclear weapons program. Both America and Israel will go to war to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Though we are part of the empire, our cities are far from being protected from destruction by "barbarian" counterattacks. Within the empire we stand vulnerable.

Those are the two traces of empire. They mark overlapping territories and intertwined histories. Whether we like it or not, our fortunes as Australians are now tied to a neocon imperial America that is supported by a wounded nationalism. And the rebellion in Iraq to the US occupation of that country threatens to become a nasty circle of terrorism and war.