‘President’ Blair in hot water
Rime Allaf, March 26, 2002
Letter from London
LONDON: “Presidential” is an adjective generally used to convey qualities that are admired and sought in a leader, but it has denoted a rather more pejorative connotation when Britons have used it to describe Tony Blair’s leadership style.
In fact, tiring of his presidential (read autocratic) approach to government and astounded by his alarming readiness to open a new war front in the Middle East, MPs are now talking freely about challenging Blair to the leadership of the Labour Party, and consequently to the post at 10 Downing Street.
Britons, like the rest of the world, were somewhat surprised a few days ago to hear just how easily their country could be drawn into a nuclear war, when MPs listened to Geoff Hoon, defense secretary, announce that Britain would retaliate with a nuclear strike if its troops were attacked with “weapons of mass destruction.”
To ensure that the threat was taken seriously, Hoon warned Saddam Hussein, or like dictators, that they should be “absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.”
This confrontational rhetoric added another description to the prime minister’s perceived position, causing eminent journalist John Humphrys to refer to him as “Field Marshall Blair” in The Sunday Times.
If the British government was trying to desensitize its people to the concept and possibility of “nuking” anyone, the plan is so far failing. Serious media analysis has reflected on the sheer folly of the idea, commenting that Washington is perhaps again using London to test the public’s reactions to such thinking. Analysts also wondered about the Strategic Defense Review of 1998, which specifies that Britain will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state unless that state attacks Britain or its allies in alliance with a nuclear weapon state.
In light of this policy, one can wonder whether Blair’s government has forgotten the document, or whether it is possibly preparing to reveal to the world that Iraq has nuclear weapons.
While the British Cabinet remains set in its course to “Americanize” its position in matters of foreign policy, sounding gradually more and more like an offshoot of Voice of America, the public seems equally determined to show its resistance to this drift.
Separate polls (ICM-Guardian and Time Magazine) showing similar results indicating that over half the population is opposed to an attack on Iraq, with similar trends across the political spectrum. Blair’s own performance approval has also suffered, declining some 20 points to 52 percent. In another Sunday Times poll, 54 percent of voters found Blair “disappointing” and 20 percent wished he would step down immediately.
This antagonism has not deterred Blair from continuing to espouse a stance that many consider increasingly right-wing. In fact, finding support outside Britain, the prime minister and leader of the Labour Party has found unlikely allies in Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Spain’s Jose-Maria Aznar, forming a “BAB” axis of conservatism that seems to fit right into George W. Bush’s small fan club.
While the British public is increasingly irritated, Blair himself seems increasingly confident of his position, claiming that his strategy is enhancing Britain’s influence in the EU.
But Blair’s own influence within Britain, and even within his own party, appears more elusive every day. More than 130 MPs have by now signed the Commons Motion opposing the war on Iraq, and the nuclear warning will likely add signatories to the list.
Clare Short has become the first Cabinet minister to publicly oppose what she calls “a blind military attack on Iraq,” and hinted she would be ready to resign her post if that happened. Observers note that Short may not be the only government official with such standpoints.
Reports now say that senior British military and official sources have even warned Blair that any attack on Iraq, in addition to being unpopular at home, would be illegal under international law. Ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction is one thing, they argue, while ridding it of Saddam Hussein is an entirely different matter.
Interestingly, while the government is pushing the Iraq issue into the “war on terror” folder, most critics not only reject this stance, but place Iraq in the Middle East conflict folder instead.
“With the state of the Middle East, the terrible suffering of both the Israeli and Palestinian people, with the anger there is in the Arab world, to open up a military flank on Iraq would be very unwise,” Short said on BBC’s On the Record.
Also associating Iraq with the Arab-Israeli conflict, Home Secretary David Blunkett, who last week warned of an outbreak of riots if Iraq were attacked, was quoted as telling other Cabinet members that “we cannot separate Iraq from the Middle East or we will have major disturbances, both internationally and in Britain.”
But Blair is thus far determined to disregard geography and to ignore his ministers and party members. This has certainly not been lost on Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative Party leader, who is recklessly calling for Saddam to be toppled before he can “finish developing missiles and nuclear weapons capable of threatening European cities.” Exploiting the fact that Blair is thinking more like his conservative “partners” (from Bush to Berlusconi) than his own ideological cronies, Duncan Smith practically seems to be daring Blair to be man enough to act on his words and lead Britain into an invasion on Iraq.
Middle East politics have left Blair in a very precarious position; the revolt that was only being murmured last week is now completely out in the open, and a potential challenger to Blair has been proposed. Charles Clarke, Labour Party chairman, would apparently “make a very good prime minister” according to a senior Labour backbencher, although Gordon Brown, chancellor of the Exchequer and close Blair friend, was assumed by some to be the natural runner.
If 20 percent of MPs can support a challenge to Blair’s leadership, a ballot could arise within the Labour Party’s electoral college. It is unclear at this stage just how many MPs would be willing to bring their disenchantment with Blair this far, but the past few weeks have shown that the prime minister has been inflaming more and more resentment with his belligerent Iraq policy. Although he remains stoically defiant in the face of challenges from all sides, Blair must at some point come to wonder whether continuing to pay lip service to Bush will do his own country, let alone his political career, any good in the long run.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2002/Mar-26/10523-president-blair-in-hot-water.ashx
