Posted on 04/18/2004 1:36:10 PM PDT by Eurotwit
THIS is the season for bumper stickers in the US. In the – bikes, windows, backpacks, tank tops. After a while they blur into a haze of red, white and blue.
Then suddenly one stands out. Stuck on an old and crusty Volvo in Adams Morgan, the hippest part of an unhip city, I found myself staring at one I hadn't seen before: "Tony Blair for President". Even in the endless drizzle of the past couple of weeks, I grinned.
I'm not sure whether any British prime minister has reached the kind of popularity and esteem Blair has in the US right now. Margaret Thatcher was revered and worshipped by conservative Americans, but liberals knew she was a Bad Thing. Too close to Ronald Reagan. Bellicose. Nasty to the poor.
Churchill is still regarded in most elite and popular circles as a kind of 20th-century deity in the US. But he is now myth, not reality.
Blair, on the other hand, has followings in both red and blue America. The George W.Bush-loving heartland will never forget Blair's emotional support for the US after September 11, nor his steadfastness in the war against the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.
The Volvo-driving Cape Cod-vacationing elites revere his eloquence. The great US liberal bores of today, after they have spent time describing how they are so much more intelligent than their embarrassing President, will bend your ear – especially if you are a displaced Brit like me – and sigh, if only they had a president like Tony.
What all this means, of course, is that the Bush-Blair combo has real political impact in the US. It is one of the few things – apart from the latest Donald Trump reality TV show – that brings most Americans together.
Blair could do enormous damage to Bush were he to distance himself from his partner. Bush, of course, could only do wonders for Blair if he did the same in return. So why do they remain such allies?
You can talk about religious faith. You can talk about a habit of intellectual certainty or personal chemistry. But it makes far more sense to interpret the relationship as one of a shared understanding of the most important issues in world politics today.
Both leaders believe terrorism is the greatest threat to modern civilisation.
Both believe that weapons of mass destruction, if combined with terror, could destroy that civilisation.
Both believe the crisis is deeper and wider than many want to think about.
Both believe that the war on Iraq, far from being a diversion from the war on terror, is in fact the most critical issue in that war. And both believe they are winning.
They are right. If you look dispassionately at the events of the past few months – even the past few bloody weeks in Iraq – you can see why. In several theatres of war, the West has made such enormous progress.
The Taliban regime no longer exists in Afghanistan, and al-Qa'ida has been severely damaged. One of the most destabilising forces in the Middle East – the disintegrating regime of Saddam – has been removed. The most aggressive terror state of the previous two decades, Libya, has come in from the cold. And the younger generation in Iran is risking life and limb for change.
The possibility of a representative pluralist government in a critical Arab state is now within reach for the first time – and that possibility offers the only, yes the only, chance for real and lasting progress against the forces of Islamo-fascism.
All the news out of Iraq these past couple of weeks has been hyped into a message of despair. But in fact something quite remarkable has occurred. The most dangerous representative of Islamicist theocracy in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, facing the prospect of a moderate government, decided to play his only card and seize power by force. He was routed by US forces and isolated by the moderate Shi'ites.
Meanwhile, the remnants of the Sunni Baathists, joined by terrorists from around the region, stepped up their assaults in the city of Fallujah. They tried to piggyback on Sadr's revolt to create chaos and precipitate a US withdrawal. Enter the US Marines.
We do not yet know the details of the battle in Fallujah. But I predict it will be remembered as one of the most critical battles in the war on terror. In a matter of days the insurgents were killed in vast numbers in classic urban warfare.
The ratio of US to insurgent casualties was roughly one to 10. What should have been done early in the invasion – wiping out the Baathist thugs and their Islamicist allies – was accomplished. And a truce broke out.
It's still too early to know how this delicate situation will resolve itself. The Iraqi extremists had made it known they would make life difficult for US troops and try hard to create a new Vietnam. The Americans made it clear they wouldn't buckle, and could destroy the insurgents if push came to shove.
Enter Lakhdar Brahimi, the special United Nations envoy in Iraq. In this truce the UN could find renewed authority to negotiate the terms and membership of the new Iraqi government. What that means is that the new regime after June 30 will be far more legitimate and stable than would have been the case if Washington had imposed it.
The latest indications from Washington are that Bush, rattled by his slide in the polls, will accept Brahimi's recommendations, stop US micro-management of Iraq and return to the critical work of training local security forces and exterminating extremists in the run-up to elections.
So the Americans may appear to be conciliatory to their critics while still achieving their ultimate objectives. And the Iraqis can construct a new government without its leaders looking like US stooges. Win-win.
Given that prospect, why on earth would either Bush or Blair break up their partnership? Even with Bush's blessing of Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and de facto annexation of areas of the West Bank, it makes sense.
Yes, the Sharon gambit offends European elites, but calling for a negotiated settlement in Israel-Palestine is a non-starter. There is nobody on the Palestinian side with whom the West can negotiate. If we didn't learn that from Oslo and Camp David, we learned nothing.
But we will now have an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and some of the West Bank. And the process won't be dependent on that senile old terrorist Yasser Arafat, whose word is as good as Osama bin Laden's.
That, of course, was the week's coup de grace – bin Laden offered a truce. Who offers truces? People who are losing the battle.
The reason why Bush and Blair are still together is that they can see the distant, still perilous, but tangible prospect ahead. It may take more setbacks. It may not prevent future atrocities. But in the events of the past few weeks they can begin to see success is not impossible.
It may even, if we keep our nerve, become a reality.
The Sunday Times
Good article. We are so fortunate indeed to have Tony Blair on our side in the war on terror. Blair not only "gets it" but is willing to put politics aside to do the right thing. God bless him!
True. But we've seen articulate and useless (or evil, depending on your POV). Articulate isn't my primary criterion anymore.
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