More than a quarter century ago, a youthful Tony Blair was the unlikely peacemaker who defied long odds by bringing apparently irreconcilable opponents together in a grand bargain.

Back in 1998 and elected Britain's prime minister only a year earlier, the 43-year-old Labour Party leader thrust his energies into resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland that had divided Catholics and Protestants — often violently — for seven decades.

The result, thanks in large measure to American mediation, was the Good Friday Agreement that among other things changed the constitutional relationship between Northern Ireland and Westminster by devolving powers, thereby bringing "the Troubles" to an end.

For Blair's supporters, it was the signature achievement of his prime ministership, underscoring his remarkable abilities at persuasion and negotiation.

Former British prime minister John Major, left, looks on as then prime minister Blair gestures during a question-and-answer session with local students at Waterfront Hall in central Belfast on May 6, 1998. Blair and Major were in Northern Ireland to lend support to the peace agreement signed on Good Friday. (Reuters)

For his many detractors, though, the Good Friday accord would soon be eclipsed by Blair's deeply unpopular 2003 decision to join then U.S. president George W. Bush in attacking Iraq, including his overstatement of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to justify going to war.

The conf