Illustration / Steve Brodner

The Blair War Project

The British prime minister is on a mission - and it's not George Bush's.

By Anthony Dworkin, 3/16/2003

ODAY, THE LEADERS of the United States, Britain, and Spain gather in the Azores Islands for a meeting that looks like the final move in an extraordinary game of diplomacy. War in Iraq may be only days away, and the terms under which the war is fought, or the possibility of a last-minute deferral, hang in the balance.

None of these leaders has more on the line than Tony Blair. At home, he has been subjected to public ridicule and faced open defiance from within his own cabinet. And even as he gives his backing to Bush's war plan, there are signs that some of the president's men question his relevance. Last week, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld caused an uproar when he hinted that the United States might go to war without the aid of

British troops, and then retracted his remark.

How did things come to such a pass? One explanation that has acquired some currency in Europe is the ''poodle'' theory-the idea that Blair has risked everything to remain in the good graces of Washington. In fact, this argument, with its suggestion of a slavish and unthinking obedience to the White House, is deeply misleading.

Certainly, like all British leaders, Blair cultivates his ties with Washington. But when he says that if the US administration were not seeking a showdown with Saddam Hussein he would be pushing it to do so, there is good reason to believe him.

What's more, Blair's strong belief in disarming Saddam Hussein stems from a view of the world that is distinctly not President Bush's. Today, Blair finds himself tethered to an American leader whose political values, and whose policies on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to world poverty, are far from his own.

Throughout his political career, Blair has shown a certain relish for challenging the beliefs of his own Labor Party. In domestic affairs, Blair rejected Labor's rhetorical commitment to socialism and brought it to accept market-based policies pioneered by the Conservatives. In foreign affairs, he decisively rejected his party's pacifist tendencies. As Prime Minister he has ordered British troops into action four times since coming to power in 1997: in the short ''Desert Fox'' action against Iraq, in the Kosovo war, in Sierra Leone, and against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Blair's militant liberal instincts were shaped by an influential adviser, the diplomat Robert Cooper (who now works for the European Union); Cooper argued that the ''post-modern'' nations of Europe are confronted by a threatening ''pre-modern'' world of failed states. As NATO warplanes streaked across the skies of Serbia in 1999, Blair unveiled his grand ''doctrine of the international community'': In an era when the impact of mass crimes and disorder washes across national boundaries, armed intervention and the pursuit of global justice go hand-in-hand. ''We are all internationalists now,'' he argued. ''Whether we like it or not.''

According to the historian Sir Michael Howard, formerly of Oxford University, Blair's outlook places him squarely in a particular British center-left tradition, that of the 19th-century Liberal leader William Gladstone. ''As against the Conservative Disraelian concept of mere national interest,'' Howard argues, ''Gladstone believed that British foreign policy should be based on a broader concept of international order which should also embrace the right of intervention in states that were misbehaving.'' Gladstone passionately attacked the Conservative government of the day for its failure to challenge the Ottoman Empire over its persecution of Christians in the Balkans. The use of armed force to promote an international order based not on national interest but on a law of humanity-this characterization of the liberal tradition perfectly captures Blair's quasi-evangelical sense of mission in the world.

The events of Sept. 11, 2001 underscored with chilling clarity one of the perils of globalization-the ability of an outlaw group based half a world away to strike with deadly force inside the borders of the world's strongest power. In the

aftermath of the attack, Blair gave a soaring speech to his party conference in October 2001. He said it was important to act firmly in the face of new dangers but also promised-as if in a kind of cosmic bargain with his conscience-a new push for justice for ''the starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant'' of the world. ''The world community must show as much its capacity for compassion as for force,'' Blair argued. The need for a just settlement between Israel and the Palestinians was one example.

Blair's messianic idealism in this speech occasioned a certain amount of disdainful comment. ''The poor man has let the war against terrorism go to his head,'' sniffed The Economist. Indeed, Blair's religiosity and his tendency to think of world affairs in the most idealistic terms give him some resemblance to George Bush. And, like the Bush administration, Blair and his advisers came to focus in the months following Sept. 11 on the dangers of proliferation.

Both for strategic reasons and in support of his ideal of global order, Blair was disposed to back an attempt to ensure that Saddam Hussein met his obligation to disarm. But in contrast to Bush, Blair has been committed to working through international institutions and through cooperation. ''His instincts are fundamentally inclusive,'' says Sir Lawrence Freedman, a professor of war studies at King's College London, whom Blair has consulted on foreign policy. ''He thinks the Western countries now have a unique opportunity to set the terms of international order, and to do this it is important to develop a consensus around these principles and how to take them forward that takes in both the US and Europe.'' On a practical level, this meant that Blair would build on Britain's closeness to the United States to persuade the Bush administration to take its case to the United Nations-relying on his own formidable talent for finding the common ground among reasonable, right-thinking people.

For a time, Blair's officials could point to evidence that the approach was paying off: the unanimous passage of Resolution 1441 through the Security Council in November, and Saddam Hussein's admission of the UN inspectors into Iraq. But since then, his strategy has started to unravel. A further UN resolution, while vitally important to him, is of less consequence to President Bush. And the European powers, especially France, have proved indifferent to the argument that it is important for the sake of the international system to let a resolution pass. Blair's policy was to keep faith with America's hawks (not least to keep up the pressure on Saddam Hussein), while working behind the scenes to moderate their rougher edges and act as an intermediary to the Europeans. But the growing chasm between these opposing groups has made compromise increasingly difficult.

A trenchant analysis of Blair's problems is provided by William Wallace, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, and a defense spokesman in the House of Lords for the Liberal Democrat party (the modern-day descendants of Gladstone's Liberals). ''If Blair had been attempting an intelligent balanced strategy, he should have been putting more effort into keeping some lines open to the French and Germans, and should probably be making a few more public noises of doubt about the Americans'' to make sure that British support isn't taken for granted. In other words, Blair has favored his intense personal conviction that Saddam Hussein must be faced down over his desire to give the military operation against him the widest international legitimacy.

Blair's supporters would disagree, arguing that the strength of French opposition to the United States-British position is opportunistic and unjustified. ''I think Blair has been caught out by the ferocity with which Chirac has gone into the opposing camp, which I think he feels very let down by,'' says Freedman. Indeed Blair's frustration with the French broke into the open on Wednesday, when he said bitterly that it was ''complicated'' to get an agreement at the United Nations ''when one nation is saying that whatever the circumstances it will veto a resolution.''

But even his backers concede that a large part of Blair's difficulty is due to the fact that the US administration with which he is aligned shares so few of his underlying values. The note that was struck most often during the eloquent debates on Iraq in the Houses of Parliament two weeks ago was one of distrust of President Bush and his agenda. A leading Conservative MP, Kenneth Clarke, spoke for many when he claimed that the timetable for war had been set many months ago, and that the United States had never been genuinely willing to consider the possibility of resolving the crisis without the use of force. Blair has always said his aim was to force Iraq to comply with UN resolutions and to enhance the international rule of law, and Clarke's implication was that he had been taken for a ride.

The differences between the Bush and Blair worldviews are particularly striking when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Blair has told the House of Commons that the issue is ''as important as anything else in the world today.'' The White House, by contrast, gives the unmistakable impression that it would prefer the Israeli-Palestinian issue to be put on hold until the wider effects of a successful war against Iraq have time to filter through. President Bush's announcement on Friday that he would unveil a ''road map'' for peace in the Middle East when the new Palestinian prime minister takes office seems at least partly intended as a last-minute favor for his British ally.

The degree of Blair's political exposure can be measured precisely by the distance between his cooperative ''doctrine of the international community'' and President Bush's own doctrine of unilateral pre-emptive attack against any state or group that threatens US security. Blair's supporters readily admit that Washington's ''with us or against us'' approach to the world has stoked opposition across Europe and made the Prime Minister's position immeasurably more difficult. It may still be that a compromise emerges from the diplomatic brinkmanship that is being played out in the Security Council. Clearly, that remains the British government's desperate hope. But there is a strong feeling in London that the fate of Blair's political credibility now lies with forces outside his control.

Anthony Dworkin, a writer based in London, is editor of the Web site Crimes of War (www.crimesofwar.org). His articles have appeared in Prospect and the TLS.

This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 3/16/2003.
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