As insults go, it was a pretty mild one. Would George Bush give Tony Blair the same level of support at the G-8, Trevor McDonald asked, as Blair had given Bush on Iraq? “I really don’t view our relationship as one of quid pro quo,” the president said, a half-smile playing over his lips. “So I go to the G-8 not really trying to make him look bad or good; I go to the G-8 with an agenda that I think is best for our country.” Translation: Don’t expect any favors, Tony; I will do what’s best for America.
Perhaps that was just a neat bit of expectation management, skillfully lowering hopes for a breakthrough at Gleneagles — only to confound us with an eventual agreement that will allow the summiteers, and Blair especially, to boast of a great success. (Possible clue: On Monday the word went out that Bush was prepared to soften his opposition to action on climate change.)
On the other hand, it’s always wise to treat Bush as he says he wants to be treated: As a plain-speaking Texan whose words are to be taken at face value. The president may have been doing no more than telling Sir Trevor the truth. For all Blair’s dogged loyalty these past four and a half years, Washington will do nothing that deviates from its own interests.
In which case, an uncomfortable question arises. After stretching every sinew for George Bush — most notoriously by serving as chief ally and lead advocate for his war in Iraq — what, exactly, does Tony Blair have to show for it? We have seen the quid, paid over and over: So where is the quo?
Too crude a question, sniff the Downing Street crowd. The PM, they say, shares Bush’s view that this relationship is just not like that. It’s not about the trading of favors week by week, but rather a long-term, strategic alliance — a postwar decision by Britain to be close to the US, a choice that endures no matter who sits in the White House, no matter the setbacks.
Press them harder, and even these government types will get out the ledger and point proudly to the credit column: All the things that they believe were purchased by Blair’s fidelity to Washington.
First up is Bush’s action on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Not much, they concede, and it came late, but Blair can claim credit for getting Bush to engage with the issue at all, according to those who know the relationship up close. The road map was cajoled from Bush by Blair, they say, as was last November’s promise by the president to see a Palestinian state within his second term.
Others point to the White House refusal to go along with those Republican hawks keen to do to Kofi Annan what they did to his predecessor, Boutros Boutros Ghali. “Not shafting Kofi” was a result of “Tony saying Kofi is our man,” is how one loyalist puts it. The same source notes the continuing US presence in the Balkans; the Americans might have been tempted to pull out, but they have stuck it out. Others mention US acquiescence in the defense agreement brokered last year by Germany, France and Britain. The White House instinct was to regard it as a threat. But Blair used one of his weekly video conference calls with Bush to make the case, deploying, I’m told, all his powers of persuasion — and it worked. Bush let it pass.
The most famous US favor to Blair is also the most embarrassing: The decision to take “the UN route” on Iraq. Ministers and officials mention it now with a self-deprecating chuckle; it may have gone horribly wrong, they imply, but no one can deny that it was earned by Blair. If Saddam had only cooperated fully, one true believer told me the other day, the UN process would have prevented the Americans from going to war. And it would have been Blair’s achievement.
Several of the items in the credit column are like that, putting the best possible gloss on what were in fact disappointments. It was thanks to Blair’s closeness with Bush, runs one argument, that British citizens were released from Guant?namo Bay — when surely, if London is so close to Washington, no British citizens should have been there in the first place. Blair has succeeded in calming down the trade war over steel, says one official, with US protectionist barriers quietly lowered after the 2004 election — though the obvious question is why the US was waging a trade war with its closest ally. Another mentioned the US decision to allow the international criminal court involvement in Darfur — hardly a huge concession when the US continues to boycott the court.
You can see why this kind of accounting does not appeal to the Blairite circle. They are more comfortable arguing the case for the “special relationship” in more fundamental terms. Trade and investment still bind the two countries; there are British business interests all over the world that benefit from the strength and reach of American protection. And then there is intelligence. Cooperation between our spy agencies remains the most obvious fruit of the relationship. Much of what the Americans find out is shared with us, a fact manifested in the reams of paper marked “For UK-US Eyes Only”.
The bottom line, says Ed Owen, until recently special adviser to Jack Straw, is that “the US has the diplomatic and military strength to make things happen. They are the dominant power and in so many areas there’s nothing that can be done without their support.” According to Owen, the key question is: “What’s the alternative?” Gerhard Schr?der and Jacques Chirac tried to run against America, and look where it got them. It hasn’t even helped them domestically.
So Britain’s foreign policy elite has come to the pragmatic conclusion that it does not have much choice. It is locked in a historic embrace with the US and has to make the best of it. If Britain wants to be a player, it has to be at the Americans’ side.
But not perhaps at their feet. The only dissenting voice I heard belonged to a one-time Whitehall insider who believes his former colleagues have failed to realize how much the world has changed. In the cold war era, when Britain was wholly dependent on America’s nuclear umbrella, the relationship was bound to be unequal. But that excuse no longer applies. Now it makes more sense to look at the “day-to-day account sheet”, to make sure Britain is getting out as much as it is putting in.
In that spirit he urges Blair — who, he says, does not like confrontation — to inject more steel into his encounters with Bush and Washington. “They can be tough b..., and that means you have to be tough back,” he says.
It’s not a call for a rupture, nor even much of a substantive change — just a move toward more “grown-up relations.” And this week in Gleneagles may be just the moment to try.
