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Posted on 11/02/2001 6:31:50 AM PST by Nachum

In 1853 the explorer Richard Burton became the first Westerner to penetrate the holy shrine of Mecca. He afterwards warned a follower: “Those who find danger the salt of pleasure may visit Mecca. But if asked whether the result justifies the risk, I should reply in the negative.” Tony Blair this week cast himself as Burton. By all accounts, his voyage to the Middle East was brave, miserable and fruitless. Critics castigated it as a humiliating blunder. I disagree, but only if the outcome justifies the risk and defies Burton’s admonition.

The visit was reckless. No British leader has performed such intensive personal diplomacy in the region before, let alone on behalf of a foreign power. Arab commentators have reflected that Osama bin Laden must indeed be a man of substance to make a Briton pay court to the murky rulers of Damascus, Amman and Riyadh. No French, German or even Russian leader would attempt such desperate intervention. Yet it is hard not to admire a Prime Minister who, having cast himself as Richard I reborn, then tests the role to destruction.

Mr Blair’s visa was stamped “Ambassador Unplenipotentiary to the USA”. Yet his friends left him woefully shorn of support. At his moment of maximum exposure in Syria, Washington ordered a B52, the veteran symbol of American militarism, to begin the “carpet- bombing” of Afghanistan. The snub could hardly have been more blatant. As the Pentagon’s Paul Wolfowitz indicated on British television that night, allies, coalitions and diplomacy are of no concern to him. He welcomes Mr Blair’s unflagging support, as do all Americans. But should Britons object to his strategy, they can get lost. They will be labelled wobbly, appeasers and “soft on terror”. To the Pentagon, Mr Blair’s job in the Middle East was as bomb salesman, that was all.

Not even the demons of McCarthyism so coagulated the blood of reason as have the terrorists of Manhattan. A sign of desperation is that to query any twist in Washington’s tortuous military strategy is “to appease Hitler”. Britain’s Labour Party officials have been reduced to desperate measures of abuse to hold the line. Yet the strategy appears to have shifted markedly. It has passed from gaining “air superiority”, and “force degradation” to the so-called “psychological bombing” of civilian infrastructure, dams, roads and power stations. Civilian deaths may be regretted, but there is no evidence of any effort to minimise them, witness the use of cluster and freefall munitions.

This shows open scorn for the regional support. The bombing has become a punitive assault on Afghanistan. It is given some vague tactical overlay about “preparing the ground” for a ground invasion by Western troops, yet this invasion is constantly denied in favour of “covert operations”. Nothing makes sense. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s front men openly talk of toppling the Iraqis after seeing off the Taleban. To appalled regional allies, the Pentagon learnt in Kosovo to regard allies as pains in the neck.

If Mr Blair agreed with any of this he would never have left home. There would have been no point. Ever since September 11, he has acted as if he believed that any lasting campaign against Muslim extremism must have the backing of states across the Middle East. This backing is not just valuable, it holds the essence of any long-term victory. The Muslim states must be kept on- side.

Mr Blair will know now, if he did not know it before, that all lines to the Taleban and bin Laden lead back to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh’s dealings with them have been detailed and devious. The Saudis supported the Taleban. Their wealth and power, their ideological rectitude and political vulnerability all hold the key to bin Laden’s networks. They must know his lairs, as they know their Taleban.

September 11 appalled the Saudis. It was an act too awful even for the blood-stained politics of the Middle East to tolerate. The West was suddenly offered the best hope for prizing bin Laden from Kabul’s grasp. The leverage of the Saudis would be crucial. Coupled with the backing of the bribable Tajiks and impoverished Pakistanis, with the backing of Iran and of the roaming mercenaries of Afghanistan itself, a potent coalition against bin Laden was in place in those early days after September 11.

Only when action by proxy had been tried and manifestly failed — if necessary after months of patience — should main force have been contemplated. No matter how much American opinion craved a reprisal, restraint had to make sense. Yet it never came near to being tested. Within three weeks the strategy was torn up in precipitate bombing.

Mr Blair must now realise this. The bombing is battering his coalition to pieces. Riyadh’s refusal to see him three weeks ago was a clear warning to the West not to incite any further anti-Americanism in the region’s restless mobs. Mr Blair has been given that warning a second time, and to his face. If the Saudis “go neutral” in the war on terror, if the Iranians run for cover and the Iraqis go on the rampage, Britain and America may find themselves with nothing to show for their war but the rubble of Kabul. The war on terror will not have been won, merely raised to a new and more costly level.

Mr Blair’s aides assert that despite his mauling this week his lines are open to Washington. He can talk turkey. What is he saying? He can hardly report that the Middle East wants more bombs. With American air superiority achieved, the region’s leaders are pleading for a bombing pause. Mr Blair must surely report that. He must report the damage being done not just to the coalition but to the whole anti-terrorism campaign.

Nor is that all. Mr Blair yesterday walked into the oldest trap. The Israelis and Palestinians are not parties to America’s quarrel with the Taleban. Yet across the region, the West is nervously shifting policy. It is putting intense pressure on Israel to make concessions to a Palestinian state. It has released Pakistan from its indebtedness. It is pouring aid into bankrupt former Soviet republics. It is turning a blind eye to terrorist havens in Iran and Syria. It is shutting its mouth to human rights abuse in Saudi Arabia.

This looks ominously like an admission of bin Laden’s entire programme. I rarely stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Pentagon in disregarding diplomatic niceties. But I agree that if regional support for bombing must be bought at this price, it is not worth it. Whatever should be done to aid peace in the Middle East should not be occasioned by bin Laden. I might normally cheer at America “leaning heavily on the Israelis”. Now I am appalled. That Hamas and Hezbollah should be granted a triumph denied to Yassir Arafat, thanks to bin Laden, is obscene. That economic justice and a concern for human rights should be sacrificed to the cause of bombing the Taleban is to deny the essence of war.

Mr Blair must know that his desperate diplomacy would not be needed but for the bombing. A crude “softening up” of Taleban targets has been bought at an awesome political price. Why should Middle East governments put themselves out to capture bin Laden if the West is now threatening them with a “50-year war”? What fools talk this language? After September 11 the West and East were united. Now Mr Blair talks of a “gulf of misunderstanding”. Who created it? Assuming they proceed to topple the Afghan regime, America and Britain will have to sustain a miserable and bloody puppet government in Kabul under perpetual siege from its neighbours. They will have granted bin Laden or his successor what he craves, an anti-American coalition across the “crescent of instability”. They will have created and then wrecked a bond of shared purpose between Christian and Muslim worlds, forged by a global horror at September 11.

Mr Blair was right to risk his dignity this week if he is now a wiser and a braver man. He has seen the coalition which he struggled so boldly to sustain in mortal danger. The danger is not from bin Laden but from the continuance of the bombing. His loyalty has won him the respect of Washington. He must use it to tell the truth. Everything for which this war is being fought is at risk from the bombing

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