Perfidious America?
STELZER, IRWIN M.
Perfidious America? Tony Blair deserves better from America than a medal. BY IRWIN M. STELZER AS TONY BLAIR heads for America to collect his Congressional Gold Medal this week, he must be...
...The prime minister had told the House of Commons that Saddam had such weapons, and, in what now seems an unfortunate turn of phrase, the ability to use them against coalition forces on 45-min-utes' notice...
...So imagine Blair's horror when the first batch of Iraqi oil to be put on the market since the overthrow of Saddam went to the French...
...But Blair persevered, for the simple reason, as he often told me, that it was the right thing to do—right because Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction (more on that in a moment) posed a threat to world order...
...vinced that Britain's interests in stopping the spread of terrorism to their country were ill-served by an attack on Iraq, was too large to be dismissed as of little consequence by a politician with Blair's sensitive political antennae...
...Britain's prime minister knew that he was taking an enormous political risk when he decided to join Washington in attacking Iraq...
...But the administration is so committed to those tariffs it is appealing the WTO's decision...
...Not exactly a prescription for rising popularity...
...Indeed, polls show that his party now trails even the woebegone Tories, and that the prime minister himself is no longer trusted by the majority of the British people...
...to the more pragmatic of his constituents, tangible rewards are required...
...The left of his own Labour party was opposed to the war: Many in that faction did not see saddam Hussein as a threat, others felt that action without U.N...
...Worse still, there is considerable public anger at the "friendly fire" deaths of British soldiers, anger that bubbles up even in conversations with Brits friendly to America...
...BY IRWIN M. STELZER AS TONY BLAIR heads for America to collect his Congressional Gold Medal this week, he must be thinking, "With America for a friend, I surely don't need any enemies...
...Now the political bill is coming due...
...And when the "buy American" provisions of our laws were strictly interpreted by administration bureaucrats to prevent British construction companies with long experience in the Middle East from bidding on the initial contracts for reconstructing Iraq's long neglected infrastructure...
...If we don't tally the so-called "payroll party"—those members of parliament appointed by the prime minister to government positions that bring extra pay and perks—the antiwar faction claims almost 40 percent of the Labour seats in parliament...
...Add to that the one million protesters that turned out for an antiwar rally in February, the largest political march in Britain's history...
...One cab driver asked me, "How come British forces didn't inflict any friendly fire deaths on Americans...
...so far, he is losing his bet...
...In part this is due to the failure of some of his domestic policies: Crime is seen as rising, the transportation system is a mess, the National Health Service shows little sign of improving despite a massive infusion of money, taxes are up...
...and right because it is in Britain's interests to preserve its special relationship with the United States...
...Surely Tony Blair deserves better...
...If the charges of doctoring security reports had been upheld, Blair might well have been forced to resign...
...So Blair returns to America a wounded politician, damaged in part because of his willingness to stick with America...
...But British firms will compete on an equal footing with French companies...
...The president has announced that we will negotiate a trade deal with Bahrain in return for our use of its territory for bases in the recent war...
...Meanwhile tariffs on British steel remain—illegal tariffs, according to a decision last week by the World Trade Organization...
...right because, as he laid out in a speech in Chicago several years ago, the free world has an obligation to intervene if a local tyrant is committing serious crimes against his own people...
...The president had his own party behind him from the start, could count on public anger at the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and does not face an electorate enamored of the need for U.N...
...Increasingly under pressure from France and Germany to abandon close ties with the White House and surrender control of British foreign and defense policy to the European Union (which Blair says he will never do, but stay tuned), Blair needs proof that the "special relationship" with America, cemented with the deaths of many British soldiers, pays off for Britain...
...Those charges were made by a BBC commentator, allegedly based on a single anonymous source within the security services...
...Now that they have been rejected by a parliamentary committee, many are calling for the resignation of the director-general of BBC (the Baghdad Broadcasting Company, to students of its war coverage, which persists in mispronouncing the name of our deputy secretary of defense as "Volfovitz," among its many other sins against honest news coverage...
...Unlike President Bush, Tony Blair cannot count on public patience with our failure so far to uncover weapons of mass destruction, since the "regime change" at which Americans are taking satisfaction was never even hinted at by the prime minister as justification of his decision to put British troops in harm's way...
...sanction was illegal, and still others were unwilling to back America, no matter what the merits of the issue...
...A country that stood by us in the face of international opposition will be treated the same as one that hurled all its diplomatic resources into an effort to isolate America and prevent us from pursuing our vital interests...
...He gambled that his new friend, George W. Bush, would see loyalty as a two-way street...
...This mélange of pacifists, anti-Israel Muslims, assorted anti-Semites, Bush haters, and folks genuinely conIrwin M. Stelzer is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, and a columnist for the Sunday Times (London...
...In short, we seem to know better how to punish our enemies than to reward our friends...
...approval...
...And yes, we have now announced that there will be competitive bidding for some contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq's infrastructure...
...Blair's party opponents number more than the usual gang that the government calls the "awkward squad...
...To the prime minister it is enough that he has done "the right thing...
...As Blair prepares to receive his medal and to address a joint session of Congress, his popularity at home has sunk to its lowest level in years...
...In this sense, his commitment of troops to the Iraq war required greater political courage than President Bush's similar decision...
...It gets worse...
...But in part, too, Blair's current problems stem from the coalition's failure to find weapons of mass destruction...
...Although hammered at public hearings by two cabinet members who resigned in protest over the war, thereby staking out positions to the left of Blair in anticipation of his voluntary or forced retirement, Blair and his aides were found innocent last week of the charge of deliberately "sexing up" intelligence reports to justify military action...
Vol. 8 • July 2003 • No. 43
