Once hailed as a "new dawn" for his country, Tony Blair's premiership has been darkened by the war in Iraq, a Chinese commentator said yesterday as the British prime minister stepped down.

Blair burst onto the political stage aged 43 in 1997, becoming Britain's youngest prime minister of the 20th century - the first born after World War II and full of the energy needed to take the nation into the 21st century.

He has had his triumphs: revitalizing the Labour Party and leading it to three consecutive election victories, and brokering peace to Northern Ireland after decades of bloodshed, said Yu Sui, an expert at Beijing's Contemporary World Research Center.