At the risk of turning this into another Mumsnet thread, Blair really is a classic narcissist. It's all about him, and it's never his fault. He talked about the possible bombing of Iran a while back, over their nuclear programme, didn't he? The thing is, if it's never his fault, then intervention is always the best option from his point of view, because if it goes well he can take the credit, if it goes wrong, well, it's due to circumstances beyond his control.
No wonder he wants to put himself forward for every top job going. Most of us would hesitate to do that, wondering if we have the skill or qualifications. But in his eyes, the man simply cannot fail. If you read his memoirs, his only failures are the ban on fox hunting and introducing the Freedom of Information Act. Those are the only things for which he castigates himself.
He sees himself as a sort of James Bond, who can go on these foreign policy adventures and succeed through sheer personal charisma and triumph of will.
That said, as for Corygirl and William Rees Mogg's allegation of a nervous breakdown, well, I never heard that. I would have thought that would have come out from disaffected Labour members, such as Claire Short, or types like Galloway. Not sure I should believe Rees Mogg's allegation just because it's on his deathbed, and what's more, it is a bit unPC to say that a nervous breakdown is the equivalent of insanity, we shouldn't really be saying that just because we don't like Blair much, I mean you wouldn't say it about some ordinary Joe in an ordinary job.
Writer Matthew Parris has supposed that Blair is actually mad, but it's a hard one to call really. Blair does have this hypermanic onwards and upwards attitude, he says history will judge his actions, but he doesn't tend to say that about successful Labour policies does he? Perhaps history will judge his immigration policy, viewed as a success at the time, differently too? I mean, history looks kindly on the Black Death - it reduced the population so that numbers did not outstrip agricultural produce, and boosted peasants' employment rights too, but for all that you'd struggle to call the Black Death a 'good thing'.