Former British diplomats have criticised Mr Tony Blair today and said it was time for him to start influencing the United States's "doomed" policy in the Middle East or stop backing it.
In an unprecedented letter signed by 52 former ambassadors, high commissioners and governors Mr Blair was urged to sway US policy in the region as "a matter of the highest urgency".
The diplomats, including former ambassadors to Iraq and Israel, told Mr Blair they had "watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close co-operation with the United States.
"We feel the time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will be addressed in parliament and will lead to a fundamental reassessment," said the letter, sent to Mr Blair today.
The diplomats focused on two key initiatives dominated by Washington, Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and war in Iraq, and wrote off both as "doomed to failure".
Mr Blair's spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the attack, which the diplomats believe is unprecedented in scope and scale.
It comes as Mr Blair faces deep discontent among voters for backing a US-led war that most Britons had opposed and for endorsing a Washington-driven policy that has put London on collision course with allies in Europe.