The Daily Telegraph, London

Bush must learn to ignore anything that Blair tells him By Robin Harris

(Filed: 22/04/2002)

THE recriminations began even before Colin Powell's return from his unhappy mission to the Middle East. Not since the end of the Cold War has American power been so brazenly mocked in the region. Still more important, at no time since the events of September 11, has the Bush Administration's strategy in the war against terror looked so ragged.

As befits a nation with a congenital preference for morality over realpolitik, the most dangerous attacks from the President's domestic opponents will be those that accuse him of double standards. He has appeared to argue that the global war against terror must somehow stop at the frontiers of Israel, denying Israeli armed forces the right to do to Hamas what America has itself done to al-Qa'eda.

The President has already begun to back-track from this untenable position. He will doubtless now be more mistrustful of the State Department. But George W. Bush would also be wise to reflect on what the debacle shows about advice that he received from another quarter - Tony Blair.

Ever since Mr Blair's strong response to the attacks on America last September, Americans, including their Commander-in-Chief, have regarded him as a friend. Particularly in that hour of grief, America wanted to be loved; and Mr Blair, a past master at generating the glow of fictitious friendship, duly obliged. But the influence he thereby acquired has entailed a cost.

It is now clear that Mr Blair's visit to the White House in early April was crucial in shifting the focus of American policy towards the Middle East. Of course, Mr Blair was not wholly responsible. The President had already begun to put public pressure on Israel. But in a situation where the State Department was warning of the consequences of continuing upheaval in the region for the hopes of moderate Arab acquiescence in an attack on Iraq, Mr Blair tipped the balance.

The Prime Minister had influence and he decided to exploit it. A Downing Street source was reported as saying before the visit that the British deployment in Afghanistan was "a cheque that Blair will cash in. He will tell Bush that he needs to carry the international community with him."

What this meant in practice was that, to win over the Arab states, America had to become embroiled (or, as Mr Blair put it, "engaged") in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and that this should be moved higher up the agenda than all the unsettling talk of "regime change" in Iraq.

When Mr Blair arrived in Washington, President Bush began their joint press I appreciate his friendship." But Mr Bush's advisers should have paid attention to Mr Blair's own words at a speech he would deliver the following day.

As the climax of his address, the Prime Minister suggested, in an observation no less significant for its banality, that the "most obvious lesson [of September 11] is our interdependence". Not, be it noted, the need to maintain security. Not the value of high-tech weaponry in projecting power against terrorist havens. Not even the importance of American leadership.

Rather, the implications of the attack on America and of America's potent response against those attackers amounted, for Mr Blair, to a demonstration of the need for a New World Order presided over by stronger international institutions.

Mr Blair will go along with President Bush on pragmatic grounds, understanding that a close relationship with America lends him kudos, but he shares nothing of Mr Bush's world view. Mr Blair has never believed in waging a total war against terrorism - indeed, he proudly draws attention to his negotiations with Irish terrorists as proof of his own statesmanlike credentials.

Nor is Mr Blair very obviously concerned about Iraq - at least to judge from a joint press conference held with President Chirac of France last November, opposing action against Saddam Hussein. Only when Mr Blair understood that America meant business did he fall into line. Perhaps this cynicism is why a dangerously small minority - 35 per cent - of the British public would currently back an American strike against Baghdad.

What most Americans fail to grasp is that Mr Blair is (in their terms) an inveterate liberal. He thinks that only by solving an insoluble dispute between Jews and Arabs can one build an unbuildable consensus against Saddam's Iraq. It is all of a piece with his oft-repeated conviction that only by overcoming global poverty can one defeat global terrorism, ignoring the fact that al-Qa'eda's leaders do not, by and large, seem to have suffered deprived childhoods.

President Bush has, in any case, had previous experience of his opposite number's real worth. When the two held their first summit in February last year, Mr Blair came with a mission. It was to persuade the new president that the planned European Rapid Reaction Force posed no threat to Nato.

To this end, he gave Mr Bush three assurances - that there would be joint EU-Nato command in any operations undertaken, that planning would take place within Nato and that the Europeans would act only if Nato had first declined to do so.

Each of these assurances was false; Mr Blair knew they were false; and Mr Bush now knows that Mr Blair knew they were false. The Americans have overlooked this lapse because they do not take the European army seriously, and because they like Mr Blair and think they need him. But they should also have learnt that Mr Blair is an unreliable ally and that his agenda is wholly governed by his short-term domestic political needs.

In this respect, Mr Blair's motives during his most recent visit to Washington have not changed at all. He was desperate to appease opposition within the ranks of the Labour Party, including his own Cabinet, to his policy on Iraq and to do this he had to demonstrate three things.

He had to show that he had real influence in Washington, which meant supporting the State Department against the "hawks". He had to get the President to distance himself from Israel's Ariel Sharon, a hate-figure to the Left. Finally, he had to convince his MPs that the prospect of action against Iraq had disappeared into the middle distance - hence the mantra-like repetitions back in Britain that such a campaign was not "imminent".

Judged by these criteria, Mr Blair was remarkably successful. But the direct counterpart was that the Administration's whole strategy has - for the moment, at least - been thrown into disarray.

Yet probably not for long. The logic of events will drive matters forward in Iraq, as in the Middle East. Just as there is no solution at hand in Israel-Palestine, there is only one solution possible in Iraq: Saddam must and will go. What Mr Blair, or the EU, or the Arab world, or even the UN, thinks about it will eventually count for little.

The pertinent lesson for Washington from recent events, however, is that the conditions on which Tony Blair appears to offer his support are likely to be precisely those that render whatever America intends difficult or impossible. The President can accept Mr Blair's flattery, and within limits use his good offices, but he should henceforth consistently shun his advice.