U.S. ELECTION: Now Blair Will Try to Follow

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Nov 3 2004 (IPS) - The re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush comes as a clear signal for parliamentary elections in Britain around the middle of next year.

The Bush win has brought home a strong message to Britain that the Iraq debacle of the chiefly U.S.-British coalition does not have to mean election defeat for the leader of either country.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has declared already that he will run for a third term in office. The failure to find any weapons of mass destruction, the admitted failure of British intelligence and the undeniable mess in Iraq have not dented Blair’s confidence, or perhaps even his chances. If Bush can, then Blair can.

The message from the United States is that losing an argument does not have to mean losing an election.

The renewed political strength of the two comes with stronger military alliances within Iraq. British troops have moved north of the relatively safe Basra to take up positions around Fallujah where more heavy fighting is expected.

The Bush win also strengthens Blair within Europe amid some anticipation that John Kerry would have taken U.S. foreign policy closer to Germany and France had he won the election.

The Kerry team has spoken highly of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Kerry and Blair did not meet on Blair’s last visit to the United States on the ground that a mutually convenient time could not be found. The Bush win is now certain to rub off as Blair strength in Europe.

After Kerry’s increasingly firm distancing from the U.S. Iraq policy, it was a thought a Kerry win would mean the beginning of withdrawal from Iraq. Kerry has called the Iraq war ”the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

A Kerry win could have given Blair a safe exit door out of Iraq and help him silence continuing domestic criticism. Now Blair, if re-elected next year is not likely to take a decision separately from whatever Bush decides. That means almost certainly no early exit from Iraq.

Blair campaigned in effect for Bush while maintaining due diplomatic neutrality. Bush constantly cited Blair as his partner in wisdom in Iraq. That summoned support did not help Blair face his critics. But it underlined also Britain’s special relationship with the United States, which Blair has called the envy of the rest of the world.

While both leaders are now expected to go on braving it together over Iraq, both are firmly committed to their ”war on terror”. Much of the support for Blair within Britain comes from support for this ”war”, and getting some thongs wrong in Iraq is seen increasingly as only an incidental hiccup.

Blair is riding also some negative advantage, as no doubt Bush did in the United States. For Blair to lose would mean a victory for terrorist groups. Blair’s strength in Britain comes largely from a resolve among a large section of the population to deny terrorist groups that win.

The Bush win does of course bring domestic trouble for Blair of another kind. His wife Cherie Blair is a successful solicitor and has a long record of campaigning on rights issues. Inevitably that has led her into public positions on the Bush policy that are widely different from those of her husband.

These last came up at a lecture she delivered at Harvard University last week. She praised the U.S. Supreme Court decision to give legal protection to two Britons detained at Guantanamo Bay. She called the move a ”significant victory for human rights and the international rule of law.” The Bush administration had strongly opposed the Supreme Court move.

On an earlier occasion she spoke of Bush as ”that man.”

But whatever the nature of domestic differences of this variety, Blair goes up several rungs in world influence as a result of the Bush win. Any rejection of Bush at the polls would have meant implicit rejection for Blair, and made his own election campaign that much harder.

The Bush win could also give Blair more influence with Bush. A strong push of public opinion and from the socialist element within his Labour Party could lead him to influence a Bush policy that is less adventurist in Iraq and more supportive of the Palestinian position in the Middle East.

But Blair will have to win his own election first. Like Bush he too could run into a groundswell of unexpectedly strong support.