The "Axis of Good" is starting to crumble. It is several months yet before British Prime Minister Tony Blair's promise to retire falls due, but already his current and former cabinet colleagues are trying to put some distance between themselves and his most disastrous legacy, the invasion of Iraq. This is causing some embarrassment to his American and Australian partners in crime, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister John Howard. (Only those three countries actually shot and bombed their way into Iraq, although lots of others showed up later for a while.) It started in New York on Tuesday with Mr. Hilary Benn, the international development secretary in the Blair cabinet and a contender to be deputy prime minister or foreign secretary when he goes. Benn revealed that the British government had told all its diplomats to stop using the phrase "war on terror" last December, because "we can't win by military means alone. And because this isn't us against one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives." It was a dangerous phrase, Benn continued, because it imputed power, organization and common purpose to "a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world. By letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."