Tony Blair courts disapproval with stance on war
Amanda Huskey
Currents Events Assistant Editor
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President Bush's key ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, proceeds to commit political suicide and alienate himself from fellow Britons as he fervently and unswervingly supports Bush in an impetuous attempt to disarm Iraq.
While Blair is the first to stand shoulder to shoulder with Bush regarding Iraq in recent months, as he crosses the Atlantic to his electorate in England, he currently stands alone.
As approximately one million anti-war demonstrators passionately marched the streets of London on Feb. 15, it became evident that Blair's approach to ousting Saddam Hussein has essentially estranged him from his own people.
"The real question is not about intervention," said John Game, a London University student participating in the march. "It is why Tony Blair is not listening to the people of Britain. That is not democracy; this is what democracy looks like."
Blair, who prides himself on his responsiveness to public opinion, has been scrutinized for not listening to the shouts of disapproval.
In rejoinder to the verbal attacks against him, Blair said, "I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honor -- but sometimes it is -- the price of leadership and the cost of conviction."
Following the protests and reports of the lowest poll ratings of his political career, Blair held a press conference to defend his support for Bush in this fight.
He suggested, "I actually believe that some of the rhetoric I hear used about America is more savage than some of the rhetoric I hear about Saddam and the Iraqi regime." He continued that the U.S. should be considered a friend and ally, "not some alien power acting against our interest."
Entering the most perilous period of his leadership, Blair has undoubtedly hypothesized the nightmare scenario that the future might bring. If Bush and Blair do not succeed in obtaining a second U.N. resolution, the U.S. will likely proceed to war without it, pulling Blair into a battle without popular support of his constituents.
The prime minister shocked the world and lost even more public support when it was revealed that major portions of a speech he delivered early this month were plagiarized from an unknowing student's dissertation. In the plagiarized speech, Blair had been attempting to garner support from Parliament for the war with Iraq.
Blair is not solely gambling with his leading position in the British political arena, but is simultaneously jeopardizing one of his long-term goals -- that Britain should be the key component in the effort to craft the European Union into a reliable, tactical global friend and partner of the U.S.
Amongst his European counterparts, it is the Franco-German alliance opposing military action that has presented a worrisome controversy to Blair. If Britain is connected to the U.S. in an unsupported, messy war with Iraq, it will be Germany and France -- not Britain -- that will mold the E.U.'s future.
One must contemplate why Blair is placing everything on the line to support the Bush administration's plan to disarm Iraq. The world is screaming no, the British are screaming no, yet Blair does not budge and persistently bows to the every command and need of the Bush administration.
Blair is not oblivious to the idea that what the U.S. wants, it oftentimes gets, and thus, it is wise to extend support to a probable victor. However, his actions run deeper than this assumption.
Blair, in his public address on Feb. 18 ,said, "People who want to pull Europe and America apart are playing the most dangerous game of international politics I know." However, it appears that Blair himself is engaging in the most dangerous political game of his career.