The special relationship: What’s in it for us?

Date: 22/11/03

Tony Blair's loyalty to George Bush leaves many puzzled and sceptical

THE last time an American president stayed in Buckingham Palace was 85 years ago, when Woodrow Wilson visited King George V to toast the end of the first world war. George Bush's visit may have been planned with a similar aim in mind, but the continuing conflict in Iraq has limited the scope for cheers and fuelled hostility to Mr Bush. It has also sharpened a question in the minds not just of protesters, but also of many British and continental European observers. Why does Tony Blair support George Bush so loyally?

Sceptics argue that neither Britain nor Tony Blair have gained much from the closeness between Mr Blair and Mr Bush. Britain has failed to advance its particular interests or influence American policy. In London, Mr Bush declared his pride in describing Britain as America's “closest ally in the world”, but to many Britons the most special thing about the “special relationship” is that it is specially unequal. Britain gives, America takes.

In Mr Blair's view, it does not make sense to ask what Britain gets out of the relationship. He thinks America and Britain share the same instincts - outward-looking, confident, interventionist - so the closeness comes naturally, not as a means to an end. Working with America, Mr Blair believes, is the only way to make the world a better and a safer place. No other country has nearly as much power to make a positive difference. What's more, as the only superpower, America cannot be confronted successfully. It can, however, be influenced by friends.

Yet, say critics, there are areas where British and American interests and policies diverge - steel tariffs, the Kyoto treaty on global warming, the International Criminal Court, for instance. Despite its closeness to America, Britain has won no ground on those issues. The newly departed British ambassador to America, Sir Christopher Meyer, said this week that Britain should have been tougher over steel tariffs when it was committing itself to fighting with America in Iraq.

Mr Blair insists that such issues should be kept separate. Trade is one thing, security another. Where linkage makes sense, he argues for it - in, for instance, persuading America to see the future of Iraq, engagement with the United Nations and the Middle East peace process as related issues. That has worked, up to a point. Mr Blair did nudge Mr Bush to work through the UN. Some hawkish Americans now think that was a mistake, but the administration is now committed to UN structures in a way that differs sharply from its earlier unilateralist rhetoric. Mr Blair takes some credit for Mr Bush's personal commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian road map - not that that has got anywhere much.

One of the issues that rankles most in Britain is the plight of British detainees in the Guantnamo Bay detention camp. Their continued detention may be reprehensible, but it is not a symptom of failure on Mr Blair's part. The British government is not strident in asking for their return. In truth, it would probably prefer that they get a fairish trial somewhere else than have to deal with them at home.

As for progress in Iraq, Downing Street is irritated with the Pentagon's rhetoric and reluctance to heed advice. But Mr Blair has weekly video-conferences with Mr Bush and feels that they are on “exactly the same wavelength”, according to a source closely involved. He is increasingly confident that as the details of the coalition's revised policy in Iraq emerge in the coming weeks, support for it will grow. He dismisses the idea that the American military in Iraq is incompetent and trigger-happy. The Americans, he points out, have not been trained for the job they are now doing; and the “Sunni triangle” they police is far more dangerous than the British forces' zone in the Shi'ite south of Iraq.

But that still leaves the difficulty in articulating how Britain benefits. The old cold-war pillars of Anglo-American cooperation, on nuclear weapons and intelligence, are no longer so obviously useful. The really important bit is hard to talk about. If Mr Blair ever started boasting that he has changed the president's mind he would undermine the influence that made it possible. And any attempt to sell a policy based on “trust me” is made harder by the damage that the missing weapons of mass destruction have done to the government's credibility. All that is aggravated in some quarters by Mr Bush's stumbling syntax and Texan folksiness, which arouse a snobbish hostility among some articulate, metropolitan Britons.

Yet their views seem in a minority. Widespread newspaper coverage of protestors' plans in the run-up to Mr Bush's visit gave the impression that the nation would be barricading the palace. But a poll on the eve of his arrival in the Guardian showed a majority welcoming Mr Bush and believing that the war was justified, and that America is a force for good in the world. Labour voters are especially supportive. The opposite sentiments are concentrated among young people and supporters of the Liberal Democrats. Mr Bush goes down especially badly with women and the elderly.

Mr Blair may be right that many of the people who sneer at his relationship with Mr Bush are either prejudiced or unwilling to face reality. But perhaps the strongest card in favour of the special relationship is that so many Britons still find the alternative less attractive. Best friends with France and Germany, anybody?

Tony Blair's loyalty to George Bush leaves many puzzled and sceptical.

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