War & Peace Quote by Ed Balls

Ed Balls plants a flag in the narrow strip of political ground between moral clarity and strategic regret. The first clause is a prophylactic: condemn Saddam Hussein loudly enough that no one can accuse you of sentimental anti-Americanism or indifference to Iraqi suffering. “Horrible man” is blunt on purpose, a plain-language verdict designed to travel in tabloids and parliamentary soundbites. It pre-buys credibility.

Then comes the pivot that matters: “But the war was wrong.” The word “wrong” isn’t technical (illegal, misguided, unwinnable). It’s ethical. Balls is making a judgment about process and principle, not merely execution. That choice carries subtext: he’s speaking to a Labour Party still scarred by Iraq, where arguments about weapons inspections and postwar planning always circle back to something more primal - trust. Wrong suggests a breach: of evidence, of legitimacy, of the social contract between leaders and the public.

Context does the heavy lifting. Balls is a Blair-era figure trying to manage the inheritance of Blairism without disowning the whole project. This is triangulation with a conscience: separate the morality of removing a dictator from the morality of choosing invasion as the means. It’s also a rebuke to the lazy binary that dominated the time - you either hated Saddam and backed the war, or opposed the war and must be soft on dictators. Balls insists you can hold both truths at once, and he’s implicitly arguing that mature power is measured by the decisions you refuse to make, even when the villain is obvious.