Now that he's gone, let's keep him.

Tony Blair stepped down Wednesday as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Tradition calls for him to visit Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace and inform her he is leaving; the queen then phones Gordon Brown, Blair's long-established successor, to ask him to form a new government.

Thus ends a decade-long career, much of it stellar — but overshadowed ultimately by Blair's loyalty to U.S. intervention in Iraq. When Iraq went sour, the main political casualty was not George Bush but the other best-known Western leader.

Now that Blair has snapped the book shut on his last prime minister's questions, the international community wants to give him a job. The "Quartet" of mediating powers in the Middle East — the European Union, the United States, the United Nations, and Russia — is said to be thinking of Blair as its envoy. Other international groups want him, too.

Here's hoping he accepts — if not in the Middle East, then in any of the needful areas in this hurting world. That world needs someone with his skills, his charisma, his reputation. Blair has proven himself a true negotiator where other major leaders have proven intransigent or incompetent.

Unlike such leaders, he is willing to negotiate and knows how — in private and in public. He's not perfect, but he has a good sense of the possible. Despite some Arab nations' discomfort with a figure so close to the United States, the world would do very well to find Blair a seat at the table.

Without Iraq, Blair might have been known as one of the most successful of modern prime ministers — even in foreign policy. In the shadow of Iraq, it's easy to forget that Blair sent British troops to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, and in each case made a difference. He was a primary force in shaping a world consensus on the urgency of global warming. He also helped spearhead humanitarian efforts such as the 2005 Gleneagles agreement; he often stood next to his beloved rock stars (Bono, Sting, Bowie, Geldof) behind relief efforts or third-world aid schemes.

For the United Kingdom, his greatest legacy — besides an attractive personality that won over even his critics — is his domestic policy. This Clinton-era liberal was committed to social programs within limits, wary of the bottom line, focused squarely on education and health care, two systems he helped reform. He also helped London land the 2012 Olympics.

Again like Clinton, he had a centrist-conservative side, stressing family, personal responsibility and religion (more persuasively than the wayward Clinton did). His emotional yet assured eulogy on Princess Diana established these strengths, and earned him enduring popularity.

Brown, Blair's finance minister, tussled with Blair on several issues — for example, conversion from the pound to the euro — and won. He is likely to keep more distance between himself and Bush than Blair did, and although he won't withdraw British troops from Iraq instantly, he all but has to come up with a draw-down plan quickly.

Blair, though, shouldn't be done yet. He was very good in bad situations: Even when getting moaned at in Parliament or abroad, he was able to project a sense of goals and visions. Even when he couldn't get his way, he was very good at establishing what should happen. That, by itself, would be refreshing in the Middle East, where all hands are tired of the present, obsessed with the past, and unable to articulate a future.