Trouble in Iraq and setbacks in his
European strategy have frustrated Tony
Blair's hopes of winning political acclaim
for his twin roles as America's closest
ally and leading European statesman.
Instead, he now finds himself in the
most difficult international and domestic
position of his career, with his dreams
of building a bridge across the Atlantic
in ruins.
For all his talk of modernization,
however, Mr. Blair has been a very traditional
British Prime Minister. He has
sought to avoid choosing between the
United States and the European Union
arguing that there is no contradiction
between both being a strong friend and
ally of the United States and advocating
a leading role for Britain in Europe.
With his perhaps over-used metaphor
of Atlantic bridge-building, Mr. Blair
has echoed the sentiments of his predecessors
Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson
and Margaret Thatcher, all of whom
followed the same approach. In the
words of one of Mr. Blair's closest advisers,
"sometimes we will be at one end of
the bridge and sometimes at the other"
at the European end over global warming
and the Kyoto Protocol, at the American
end over the war in Iraq.
Of course, diplomacy involves fudging
choices, or, if you prefer, maximizing
options, with the aim of "punching above
our weight," in the classic British formulation.
In one sense, Britain does not have
to choose. It can be closely linked with
the United States on major security and
defense issues and a full EU partner on
economic and trade matters. But there
are questions of balance, and of relative
priorities, which have been brutally exposed
over the past 18 months.
The "bridge/no choices" strategy has
never been accepted by French and German
leaders, who have resented British
claims to a special role as a Transatlantic
interlocutor. They have been irritated by
British talk of a "special relationship"
with Washington an expression of
British insecurity rarely used by American
leaders except to patronize. At moments
of crisis, a British Prime Minister
will always call an American President
first, before consulting a French President
or a German Chancellor. Atlanticism
has invariably been the instinctive
first reaction of British Prime Ministers
(with the exception of Sir Edward Heath
in the early 1970s, who put consultation
with European leaders first).
The "bridge" strategy has been much
harder to sustain since the end of the
Cold War. Transatlantic differences became
increasingly apparent during the
Clinton years and would not disappear
even if John Kerry were elected President
this November. But difficulties have been
magnified since the arrival of the Bush
administration, with its unilateralist
style and instincts.
Even before 9/11, Mr. Blair was seen
as an apologist for President Bush in Europe,
rather than as a spokesman for the
European view in Washington. In the
summer of 2001, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder was widely quoted as
saying that traffic across Mr. Blair's
bridge always seemed to be in one direction.
That was not entirely fair, since
many of the points Mr. Blair was making
on the need to make progress with the
Middle East peace process and to work
through the United Nations reflected
common European concerns.
Yet by seeking private influence in
Washington in return for public support,
Mr. Blair has not been able to show
what he, and Britain, has got out of his
close relationship with President Bush. If
not exactly a vow of silence, the pursuit
of influence has imposed ties of discretion.
Mr. Blair's problems have been aggravated
by the continuing instability in
Iraq, by scarcely disguised differences between
British and American military
commanders over how to handle insurgents,
and, above all, by the appalling
pictures of the mistreatment and torture
of Iraqi prisoners by American troops
and probably by a few British soldiers as
well. Moreover,Washington has tended
to treat NATO as a "tool kit" rather than
an alliance via
ad hoc coalitions of the
willing.
Mr. Blair has often speculated about
how the split over Iraq might have been
avoided possibly through a grand deal
combining European acceptance of the
need to act against Saddam Hussein and
a larger U.S. commitment to addressing
the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. But that
was unlikely because of attitudes on
both sides. Perhaps, also, Mr. Blair and
his advisers could have devoted more
time to seeking a common position with
France and Germany, as they did much
later over the Iranian nuclear program.
Many in Washington and, at times,
Mr. Blair himself have comforted
themselves with the split in Europe over
Iraq. But the division between Old and
New Europe made by U.S. Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld is a gross oversimplification,
and disregards the fact
that a majority of the public in Europe
have opposed the war. Moreover, you
cannot seriously talk of a Europe that ignores
France and Germany.
The defeat of the center-right government
in Spain in the March 2004
elections has shown the fragility of such
a classification, especially when the first
act of the new socialist administration
was to withdraw Spanish troops from
Iraq. While the new entrants to the European
Union from Central and Eastern
Europe are generally pro-American and
pro-NATO, for obvious security reasons,
this does not mean they want a fight
with France or Germany.
Mr. Blair has been left uneasily in the
middle of his very battered "bridge." He
has appeared to have little clout in Washington,
while whatever slim chances
there were of an early decision to enter
the euro have disappeared. The Iraq war
undermined the trust of the British public
in Mr. Blair. Euroskeptics in Britain
have urged a shift to the American end
of the bridge, saying that closer links between
the so-called Anglosphere countries
are a viable alternative to closer
involvement in the European Union. The
Transatlantic capitalist model is put forward
as a successful alternative to the
sluggish and inefficient European model.
So, contrary to Mr. Blair's talk when
he was first elected of ending the decades
when Britain was the "awkward partner"
in the European Union, the UK's position
looks as ambiguous as ever only
slightly better than during the final bitter
years of John Major's government in the
mid-1990s. Mr. Blair has admitted the
failure of his pro-European strategy in
his hasty decision to promise a referendum
on an EU constitution a highly
risky enterprise given the Euroskeptical
mood of British voters.
The Blair team, however, believes
that the worst of the Transatlantic tensions
may be over. While there has been
no real reconciliation, problems in Iraq
and falling poll ratings at home have
forced President Bush to adopt a more
multilateralist approach in practice, returning
to the United Nations and talking
to European allies to gain international
support for the transfer of
sovereignty to the new Iraqi Government.
Similarly, Germany, and, to a
lesser extent, France accept that the
United States cannot be left on its own.
This is less a change of heart on either
side than the result of contingent pressures.
But Mr. Blair can, at least, claim
that there is some traffic across the damaged
"bridge."
Even if all goes well, however, and
the European constitution is approved,
and sterling eventually enters the euro in
several years' time, Britain is always likely
to be closer to the United States than to
other members of the European Union.
At present, circumstances are not so favorable.
The tilt to Washington has
weakened the UK's standing in Europe,
and left Mr. Blair with little to show for
his closeness to President Bush. Mr. Blair
with the best of intentions has put
Britain in the unenviable position of
being taken for granted most of the time
in Washington and ignored by many in
Europe.
Peter Riddell is Chief Political Commentator of The Times of London
.
His book Hug Them
Close Blair, Clinton, Bush and the 'Special
Relationship'
won the Channel Four Political
Book of the Year award in Britain, and will
appear in an updated edition this summer on
both sides of the Atlantic.
go to top
