Tony Abbott went to London and at a dinner suggested that Europe stop the refugees coming in. But more of that later.

Tony Blair held a press conference before the release of the Chilcot Report so he wouldn’t appear to be such a bad guy over the disintegration of the Middle East. He is a war criminal waiting to happen and George W Bush and maybe John Howard won’t be far behind.

Even The Donald, one of the most pompous and awe-deflating Republican presidential candidates the world has ever seen, gets it. He said recently that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi ought to be still alive and we wouldn’t be in such a mess.

The Donald said what we are all thinking and not expressing enough. The USA and its allies have made a pretty big mess and don’t know how to get out of it.

Vladimir Putin is becoming a folk hero in Syria as he goes about his business of getting rid of Isis in a steady, let’s bomb them now kind of a way.

And Isis…well they wouldn’t be about if the west had left the Middle East alone all those years ago.

It’s a big mess and it’s going to be awfully hard to fix it. War creates pain and right now thousands and thousands of refugees are trying to find some peace in faraway fields in Europe.

Back to Tony Blair…in the UK officials want him to stand trial for his role in all this. Anger abounds and the Chilcot Report may well be the mechanism to make this happen.

Tony Abbott is telling Europe to do what Australia did…turn the people back…protect your borders and let Assad and all his mates look after their own people.

–The Elephant in the Conversation