One likely piece of collateral damage from President Bush's Iraq campaign could be British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Seldom has a U.S. president had a more loyal -- some would say spaniel-like -- ally, and seldom has such an ally been treated more like a dog. Tuesday night, Blair won a fiercely contested vote in the House of Commons supporting British participation in the war without UN endorsement. It was Blair who compelled George W. Bush to go before the UN Security Council last fall. Blair could never have sold an invasion of Iraq to British public opinion without the United Nations, and this was Blair's condition for supporting Bush. Now, however, Bush has entirely stiffed his ally.
At the hastily called Azores summit, Blair pressed Bush for more time, for assurances that the occupation of Iraq would be a UN, rather than a US operation, and for a resurrection of the Israel-Palestine peace process. Of these, Bush gave symbolic ground only on the third item, with a promise to revive the "road map" to a peace settlement. This is an empty slogan whose content remains to be filled in.
In Tuesday's London dailies, members of Parliament could read the blueprint of a road not taken in the Iraq affair. In full-page ads signed by American religious leaders and supported by many Labor Party back benchers is an alternative policy to rid the world of Saddam Hussein without a risky, destabilizing war.
The plan would strengthen international institutions rather than undercut them and spend billions on humanitarian aid to the suffering Iraqi people rather than on bombarding them. The plan envisions indicting Saddam before an international war crimes tribunal, Milosevic-style. Next, an international force assembled by the United Nations would enter Iraq to back up a much larger inspection force. If Saddam did not agree to go gently, he could still be left to the tender mercies of Bush.
If Blair had embraced this plan, rather than letting himself be abused by President Bush, he might have changed the course of history. As things now stand, he may well be rewarded for his loyalty by losing his job. Talk about sending signals. This is how we treat our most faithful supporters. The administration's bull-headed diplomacy has managed to alienate every other major nation -- China, Russia, France, Germany -- as well as far less powerful ones that desperately need our economic cooperation. Given the immense leverage the United States has over Mexico, Chile, Pakistan and Turkey, imagine how offensive they must have found Bush's Iraq policy in order to defy it.
Glossed over in all the war talk is the plain embarrassing fact that, despite all manner of arm twisting, bluster and phony vote-counts, Bush failed to enlist even one of the undecided nations on the Security Council. In a few months, the Bush administration has all but wrecked a collective security system that it took six decades to build. And, judging by poor Blair, Bush treats allies little better than he treats adversaries. Why would anyone follow this lead?
Domestically, Bush has demonstrated that it is not too hard to roll the opposition and much of the press. The basic strategy is: Hang tough; blitz the media; when the facts don't fit, make some up; and your adversaries will eventually cave. But what works at home against a divided Democratic Party doesn't work so well with other sovereign nations. That's because foreign leaders either need to be elected or need some other form of popular consent. The power of Karl Rove and William Rehnquist stops at the water's edge.
Even as the sole superpower, America needs the active cooperation of allies. We need help tracking down terrorists. We need help containing or disarming North Korea and other rogue regimes with nuclear designs. Obscured in the rush to war is the fact that the Russians, annoyed by Bush's swagger, have now delayed giving final approval to a U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons treaty. This has far greater stakes than Iraq.
The media have mostly been impressed by Bush's apparent calm resolve. But that's not what I see. I see a man in thrall to an obsession, unhinged from a prudent sense of proportion, captured by a small group of foreign policy radicals, and dangerously out of touch with world realities. I say that as one who loves America and detests Saddam.
When the history is written, Saddam Hussein will symbolize how George W. Bush dealt with his enemies. More ominously, Tony Blair will epitomize how Bush treated his friends.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of the Prospect.
This column originally appeared in yesterday's Boston Globe.
