To view a PDF copy of the religious leaders' advertisement -- which appeared in major British newspapers today -- click here.
With war looming, the one man who might possibly cause George W. Bush to modify his course of action is British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
It was Blair, you might remember, who persuaded Bush to go to the United Nations last fall. Yet by deciding to invade Iraq without the UN's blessing, Bush has savagely undercut Blair's domestic fortunes. The prime minister's well-respected Labour Party leader in the House of Commons, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, resigned yesterday. Two other cabinet ministers resigned last night. Yet another minister, Clare Short, who holds the international development portfolio, has threatened to resign.
Short has been working with international religious leaders, many of them American, to try to enlist Blair to support an alternative. Tonight, the House of Commons debates a crucial resolution authorizing British military participation in the absence of UN Security Council approval. Brits awakened today to full-page ads signed by American religious leaders that have been placed in every major British daily.
The ads, part of a campaign coordinated by Short and Labour Party dissidents, promote a six-part alternative third way "between war and inaction." The plan would:
1. Indict Saddam Hussein before an international war-crimes tribunal.
2. Pursue "coersive disarmament" using a multilateral UN armed force that would back up a greatly enhanced team of inspectors.
3. Foster a democratic, post-Hussein Iraq with a UN occupation force rather than a U.S. occupying army.
4. Spend billions on humanitarian aid for the Iraqi people rather than tens of billions on war.
5. Expedite the "road map" to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.
6. Revive international cooperation in the war against terrorism.
The ad, headed, "PRIME MINISTER BLAIR, IT IS TWO MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT," is signed by Jim Wallis of Sojourners, a religious magazine; John Bryson Chane, Episcopal bishop of Washington; Clifton Kirkpatrick, a leader of the Presbyterian Church USA; Melvin Talbert of the United Methodist Council of Bishops; and Daniel Weiss, immediate past general secretary of the American Baptist Churches in the USA.
As many as 160 Labour MP's are expected to vote against British participation in the war tonight, and there is an outside chance that Blair could lose a majority of the Labour vote, causing him to rely on the opposition Tories to win the resolution. This in turn could put his prime ministership at serious risk.
Well-placed sources say that Blair told an American delegation of religious leaders last month that he feels ill-treated by Bush. At the recent summit in the Azores, Blair reportedly pushed hard for Bush to agree that any occupation would be under UN rather than U.S. military auspices, but the only concession Bush made was to resurrect the "road map" idea for Israeli-Palestinian peace -- a catchphrase whose meaning largely remains to be filled in.
Blair, the most loyal of Bush's allies, could well be one of the early casualties of Bush's increasingly unilateral Iraq policy. The vote in the House of Commons is expected about 5:30 EST tonight.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of the Prospect.
