On Tuesday April 13 Tony Blair flew to Washington for deep negotiations with George W. Bush prompted by the latters decision to abandon the ‘Road Map to Peace’ and allow Israel to draw its borders unilaterally. This recent policy change was a welcome surprise to the Prime Minister who secretly hates the lazy dossers in the Foreign Office and needs all the help he can get making sure the little ingrates stay on their toes. Just kidding. It scared the bejeezus out of him. The President hadn’t deigned to give Downing Street any advanced warning of his planned middle-east policy U-turn. Hence Mr Blair’s decision to jet to Washington post haste to discuss its ramifications.
Given that (if his stumbling, nonplussed and evasive performance at his recent press conference is anything to go by) President Bush would have trouble negotiating the purchase of a bag of ice from a penniless Eskimo, let alone a viable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, some quarters expressed hope that Mr Blair could use his eloquence and diplomatic influence to persuade Mr Bush to submit to international opinion and readopt the ‘Road Map’.
Other quarters, however, glumly predicted that Blair would swallow the Republican party line like a double shot of absinthe (quickly and with an ill concealed grimace) before endorsing it with more enthusiasm than Britney Spears hawking Pepsi Max.
Unsurprisingly the naysayers were proved right (well, let’s face it, they usually are) when, on April 17th The Prime Minister threw his weight behind President Bush’s new proposals, prompting fresh comparisons between him and an eminently kickable poodle with a penchant for gratuitous public leg humping.
In spite of all the evidence to the contrary I do not believe that such canine characterisations of Tony Blair are accurate (then again, I also believe that Elvis is alive and well and living on an island somewhere in South Pacific. Make of that what you will).
Although the UK is the weaker partner in the US/UK alliance (both economically and in terms of geopolitical influence) the relationship is not as one sided as certain political pundits and satirists are making it out to be and such mischaracterisations have dangerous connotations.
They are dangerous because the logical implication of tarring Blair with the “poodle” monkier is that he is less accountable for his actions than he is in reality. Calling Blair ‘Bush’s Poodle’ makes him out to be some kind of panglossian Global Village idiot led astray by the machiavellian influence of George W. Bush. Now, needless to say, the idea that Bush (the originator of such priceless quotes as “I know how hard it is to put food on your family”, “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure”, “I know the human and the fish can coexist peacefully” “More and more [Get on with it! -Ed.]) is some kind of crafty Svengali tricking Blair into doing his evil bidding requires an almost stratospheric suspension of disbelief. Tony Blair is an extremely eloquent and intelligent man with no small amount of diplomatic deftness and political insight. His Stateside counterpart is, by contrast, regarded by many on the international stage as someone who would struggle to beat a trained chicken at noughts and crosses. It is inconceivable that President Bush could lead Tony Blair astray on any issue without his being fully cognizant of the risks involved.
The lapdog label, however, is one I doubt Mr Blair would expend much effort shaking off for it has the effect of foisting the majority of the blame for the fallout of any controversial joint ventures with the United States onto the Bush Administration. The idea that Mr Blair can avoid accepting the appropriate amount of culpability for his actions by playing up to his detractors mischaracterisations of him is one I find creepy in the extreme, and not creepy like “Wow, I was just thinking of you and then you phoned me” creepy but “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again” creepy. It’s so cynical that it gives me goosebumps (then again, I also get freaked out by David Dickenson’s thermonuclear tan - you can probably get skin cancer just hanging around him - and don’t even get me started on the ghoulish disembodied babies head in the sun on Teletubbies.
It also ignores the very real influence Mr Blair has in Washington. It was Mr Blair who pressed for a second UN resolution in the run up to the Iraq war and although he did not get it, the fact that the invasion was delayed several months before finally commencing should not lead one to believe that his efforts were in vain. Rather, they should be looked upon as a limited success. It is difficult to imagine any other foreign leader being able to exert that kind of influence over the famously resolute President Bush.
The Prime Ministers recent success in persuading President Bush to allow the UN a wider role in the reconstruction of Iraq, a concession which seemed unthinkable a year ago, is more evidence that his influence in Washington extends deeper than is commonly noted in the press.
This is why it is dangerous to label him a lapdog of the Bush Administration. He is fully aware of the implications of allying himself with President Bush and relegating him to the status of a blind hanger on only allows him to shirk responsibility when things go wrong and claim it when things go according to plan. His culpability in such misadventures as the Iraq War is equivalent to President Bush’s and this must be remembered when election day rolls around.
[Readers note: True appreciation of the authors world-view is best attained by making the incision through the temporal lobe, or just above the eye socket - Ed.]
