The press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House went perfectly. Under an azure sky and in warm sunshine Tony Blair fended off the last reporter’s question about the Iraqi crisis. As Blair turned from the microphone President George Bush patted him on the elbow. ‘Good job, Prime Minister,’ he said quietly and then: ‘Well done.’
Blair had indeed done a good job for Bush. Standing at the President’s right hand after a two-hour meeting, Blair faced the world’s television cameras. He gave an eloquent and impassioned defence of the two men’s war in Iraq. It was the sort of performance Bush had sought to give earlier in the week on a live broadcast on American prime-time television. But Bush’s fumbling display had fallen flat. Blair now provided the right tone and sense of a steady hand in a sea of troubles.
It was exactly what Bush needed. But his worries were not solely the prospect of Iraq spinning out of control. Nor was his message just for the people of Iraq, or European allies smarting from the run-up to war, or the outraged Arab world. In fact, Bush’s concerns were far closer to home: his re-election.
Bush’s campaign has got off to a rocky start. Top Republicans have been stunned by the crisis-hit beginning to what was expected to be one of the best-run, best-funded campaigns in recent memory. Instead it has been wrongfooted by a double whammy of violence in Iraq and accusations of incompetence from former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke. ‘There has definitely been a bit of disappointment about the way things have begun,’ said one senior Republican adviser.
The Rose Garden press conference was designed to change all that. The message was clear: America and Britain would stand firm. Terrorists would not win. Bush looked at ease with Blair and they cut a convincing two-man show. Though they started out answering one question each at a time, they gradually morphed into a double act, chipping in on each other’s replies and backing each other up.
But if Bush’s ambitions were satisfied, what was in it for Blair? Bush has now backed unilateral moves towards a Middle East settlement by Israel, reversing decades of US policy. Despite assurances to the contrary, many feel that has dealt a serious blow to Blair’s cherished ‘road map’ to peace.
The UN is to be more intimately involved in Iraq, but that is a factor of the deep trouble the Coalition faces in the country, rather than any genuine effort at multilateralism. All Blair appears to get is more pictures of him standing next to a man many in his own party despise.
The ‘special relationship’ seems to be one-way traffic with US needs – and Bush’s consuming desire to win a second term – governing everything. As Cherie Blair got up to go to lunch with Bush, she had a moment of confusion when she sought to kiss him on both cheeks and he pulled away. ‘It is only one cheek in Texas,’ a cameraman chuckled. Friday was clearly a day for playing by American rules.
Blair flew into America knowing he had to use any leverage he still held in Washington to promote two points. First, the role of the UN in the reconstruction of a shattered Iraq, and second some olive branch to an Arab world smarting over the unilateral announcement by Bush a day earlier that Israel would retain a presence in the West Bank.
On Thursday in New York, Blair had dinner with Kofi Annan, the UN’s Secretary-General, at the home of Sir Emyr Jones Parry, the British ambassador to the UN. Over Welsh lamb followed by chocolate soufflé, Annan made it clear that, until fighting in Iraq between insurgents and coalition forces abated, the UN’s role would have to be limited. Blair said that Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy to Iraq, should be put in overall charge of the post-handover authority. America, he was hopeful, would make such an announcement.
On Friday morning the New York Times confirmed Blair’s hope. For the first time Bush would say that the make-up of the new Iraqi administration would be guided by the UN. It was a small victory.
Over lunch in the Yellow Oval Room at the White House on Friday, Number 10 officials made clear Blair wanted to say something about economic help for the Palestinian Authority and that the Middle East ‘road map’ was not dead. The Prime Minister wanted to ‘recalibrate’ the Middle East debate and show that the Palestinians were getting something out of it.
At the press conference, Blair made the points. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. ‘We are pretty pleased, frankly, with how it has gone,’ said one Number 10 official. ‘No one is denying the last two weeks have been difficult. But now the US and Britain are on the same page, the debate has been earthed, if you like.’
No one in Number 10 is over-estimating Blair’s influence. Bush could make conciliatory noises towards the Palestinians, as he did, because it costs him nothing. With a presidential election looming, Downing Street is also clear Bush’s focus is now on the ballot box.
Although many around Blair would like to see Bush ousted at the November election, the Prime Minister knows he has to play a delicate diplomatic game. Asked if he would prefer to see Democratic contender John Kerry in the White House in an interview broadcast yesterday, Blair played a dead bat. ‘It is my job to work with whoever is the President of the United States,’ he said.
Although Blair did not rule out meeting Kerry, their diaries could ‘not be made to match’, according to one Number 10 official. Quite fortunate, that, some around Blair whispered.
Blair wants to try to get back on the front foot over Iraq, constantly promoting the fact that much of the country is relatively stable. There will was talk of the ‘foot and mouth’ syndrome – the simple theory that, in a crisis, rolling television images of discrete problems seem to run together as if giving a full picture of the country. The suggestion is that Iraq is similar. As one British military source put it: ‘We can see lots of small-scale bits of disturbance coming together at one moment.’
There was a small-scale disturbance in Washington last Monday night when the plane meant to carry Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon there was still sitting on an Israeli runway. It was scheduled to take off three hours earlier but, in a remarkable piece of brinkmanship, Sharon told US officials that he was thinking of cancelling his trip.
At stake were months of secret negotiations aimed at winning US support for Israel’s pullout from Gaza and claim to six permanent settlements in the West Bank. The Israelis also wanted US backing for an end to Palestinian ‘right of return’ to homes lost in 1948 when Israel was founded. But, as Bush was listening to European concerns over such an about-face, Sharon issued his threat.
It worked. After frantic talks Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, assured Sharon he would get what he wanted. The plane finally lifted into the night sky. Two days later Sharon, like Blair later in the week, stood side by side with Bush. The difference was Sharon – who seemed unable to stop smiling – got exactly what he wanted.
The diplomatic coup was the product of secret meetings that began last November when Sharon invited White House adviser Elliot Abrams to a meeting in Rome. Sharon laid out the bones of his plans to Abrams, who took the news back to Washington. More meetings followed, culminating in a series of late-night sessions last weekend at the Hay Adams hotel on Washington’s 16th Street. When the final agreement on what Bush would say was reached, both sides celebrated at the hotel bar.
Again, the importance of the move for Bush does not lie in the Middle East but in the American electoral map which has placed significant numbers of Jewish voters in the key battleground states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These votes could be crucial.
One pollster has estimated that swinging just 10 per cent of Jewish votes could win the entire state of Ohio. Though the Jewish population in America is traditionally Democratic, the new closeness of Bush and Sharon can now only win supporters to the Republican side. The ultra-powerful Jewish lobbying group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, heaped praise on Bush for his stance. ‘Both President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon have demonstrated committed leadership, working closely together, to create new opportunities for progress in the Middle East,’ said the executive director Howard Kohr. The committee is widely seen as the most influential foreign policy lobby in Washington and has a network of 85,000 activists in the US. They could swing a lot of votes. Republicans are also keen to exploit a potentially lucrative supply of wealthy Jewish donors. This year Democrats have stunned Republicans with their ability to raise money and Bush’s team knows that tapping into that flow of cash could be vital.
But Sharon’s triumph was a blow for British diplomacy, especially among Foreign Office mandarins with long-standing experience in the Middle East. Though Blair praised elements of Sharon’s plans, like the withdrawal from Gaza, many middle-ranking British diplomats were privately unhappy. They termed it as America simply taking sides. Certainly that is also the way the Arab world saw it.
Yet it is unlikely Blair shares those opinions. At their two-hour-long meeting, and during their lunch on Friday, Blair and Bush again demonstrated their shared moral vision of the world. Officials said the two chatted at length and in friendly terms. Blair, like Bush, firmly believes that tackling terrorism in the post-11 September world is a generational task. Iraq is just a part of it. It is a philosophy that dovetails with the beliefs of many of the neo-conservative hawks, like Vice-President Dick Cheney, that surround the Bush administration. ‘You can’t fake this stuff. Blair genuinely believes in it and so does Bush,’ said Larry Haas, a former aide in the Bill Clinton White House.
In a telling moment during his poorly received television appearance on Tuesday, Bush inadvertently hinted at this genuine closeness. As the President stumbled through a question about America’s lack of real allies, he suddenly brightened and spoke with enthusiasm. ‘Tony Blair is the same way,’ Bush said. ‘He understands, like I understand, that we cannot yield at this point in time; that we must remain steadfast and strong; that it is the intention of the enemy to shake our will.’
That may well be true. But, Blair aside, the number of world leaders who think the same way Bush thinks appears to be shrinking fast. – rdian Unlimited Â