As he has been since the early days after 9/11, Blair is determined to exert influence on Bush’s foreign policy. The public perception in Britain, rightly or wrongly, is that up to now he’s failed to have much impact on the president. Blair has announced that he will be stepping down as prime minister by next summer. As it stands, the black stain of the war in Iraq badly mars his legacy of nearly a decade in office. Blair has been Bush’s staunchest ally in Iraq, and his very closeness to Bush has brought him ridicule at home as the American president’s “poodle.” With Bush entering his final two years in office, it’s now come down to a tricky double-act: Bush the lame duck and Blair the lap dog.
It became clear this week that Blair will devote an extraordinary effort during the final months of his premiership to the conflicts roiling the Middle East, an area in which Britain has a long and often tragic history of involvement and intervention. In his appearance before the study group on Tuesday, Blair repeated themes he had laid out the night before during a major foreign policy speech. According to his spokesman, Blair “told the ISG that what he believed was needed was a plan for Iraq, and a plan for the region as a whole focused firstly on resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestine.”
The biggest single factor in getting moderate Muslim countries to support a new Iraq, Blair told the Baker-Hamilton group, would be progress on Israel and Palestine as part of a strategy for the Middle East as a whole. This was a point Blair made “repeatedly” to the group, according to his spokesman. Such progress was important in its own right, Blair said, and also as a means of defusing the issue that was most exploited by extreme elements around the region.
On Iran and Syria, Blair may have some company in Washington, though Bush himself has often seemed cool on such proposals. The two chairmen of the ISG, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, have in the past been reported to be considering involving Iraq’s neighbors. Whether Blair can really move Bush and U.S. government policy on Israel and Palestine will prove even more difficult. Blair has made similar overtures in the past, only to be rebuffed by the Bush administration.
As with an American president facing troubles on the domestic front, foreign policy is where a weakened British prime minister has the most clout and the greatest freedom of movement. Having announced his departure, Blair’s authority in Parliament is draining away; it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him to make sweeping changes at home of the sort that would boost his legacy. In that sense, it must be said that Blair is playing to his strengths by turning his attention to the east. The question is how much strength the man has left.
