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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (119729)	11/17/2003 12:35:09 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 281500

The price is too high. He's got to go. recent polls suggest a majority of Britons disapprove of their "special relationship" with the United States. Blair Pays Price for Supporting Iraq War ED JOHNSON Associated Press LONDON - President Bush's state visit to Britain this week, conceived as a display of trans-Atlantic unity, may simply remind Prime Minister Tony Blair of the price he is paying for supporting the war in Iraq. Blair's approval rating has slumped since committing British troops to the U.S.-led war. Some of his own lawmakers accuse him of being Bush's "poodle," and recent polls suggest a majority of Britons disapprove of their "special relationship" with the United States. Opponents of the war hope to bring out tens of thousands of demonstrators to march against Bush's visit, which begins Tuesday night. "It is a disgrace that Tony Blair is once again ignoring public opinion to entertain his friend at our expense," reads a campaign leaflet printed by the Stop the War Coalition, which has organized a Thursday march through central London. The timing of Bush's visit, planned 17 months ago, is difficult for Blair. The past year has been dominated by international affairs, and national elections may be held in 18 months, so the prime minister wants to concentrate on his domestic agenda and calm the unrest sparked in his governing Labor Party by the war. His recent public appearances have been dominated by visits to schools, hospitals and down-at-the-heel public housing complexes. In this context, Bush's "arrival is about as appropriate as the appearance of a stripper at a wedding," The Guardian newspaper said in a Saturday editorial. Bush is aware of Blair's predicament and heaped praise on him in a round of interviews this week. He also seemed to counter criticism that Blair simply took orders from Washington. "He's plenty independent," Bush said. "If he thought the policy that we have both worked on was wrong, he'd tell me. He tells you what he thinks and he does what he says he's going to do. "And that's about as high a compliment as I can pay a fellow leader." Bush, speaking to reporters Sunday as he returned to the White House from Camp David, said he and Blair talk "all the time" on the telephone or via secure video link. "I'm looking forward to sitting down with him in person," Bush said. "It's going to be a great trip." Blair protested his independence Sunday, writing in a newspaper that he and Bush have had differences. "Where Britain's national interests are best served by airing them publicly - as for instance over our different positions on global warming or steel tariffs - I don't hesitate to do it," Blair wrote in the News of the World. "And where behind-the-scenes diplomacy works best, I talk frankly in private to President Bush as I do to other leaders. But I welcome this visit because it's more important than ever to underline that our two countries share the same values, the same love of freedom and determination to build a safer world." Britain has been Washington's most solid ally in the war against terrorism. But the prime minister's decision to back the Iraq war, despite widespread opposition among the public and in the Labor Party, has cost him dearly. For the first time in his six years in office, he appears vulnerable. Last month, a third of those questioned in an ICM survey were satisfied with Blair's performance as prime minister, while 61 percent were unsatisfied - his lowest approval rating since he swept to power in 1997. Blair persuaded Parliament to back the war because of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction - and has been on the defensive for months because of the coalition's failure to find evidence of any. The prime minister "destroyed a large part of his international and domestic credibility by promoting a bogus claim that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were a clear and present danger," former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote in The Independent newspaper Friday. "After all that, was it really necessary to throw in a white tie and tails dinner to convince George Bush that he is his friend?" Cook resigned from a different Cabinet post in protest over the war. Jonathan Stevenson of the International Institute of Strategic Studies said there was no doubt the Iraq war deeply damaged Blair at home. But with France and Germany vehemently opposing the war, the invasion also damaged his image as a "truly European prime minister," Stevenson added. Blair says the twin pillars of his foreign policy are the European Union and Britain's strong ties with the United States. However, in backing Bush over French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Blair showed that "when push comes to shove the special relationship is more important than Britain's European identity," so he now must work hard to "restore his European credentials," Stevenson said. bayarea.com