London XV: Bush / Blair Relationship Not What It Seemed

While we’ve addressed in a number of posts the strange relationship between George Bush and Tony Blair, albeit in indirect and summary fashion,

the aftermath of the London bombings seem likely to mark a decisive break, and so it’s useful at this point to be clear about what the Bush / Blair dynamics are and are not.

The general view is that – despite his excellent relationship with Bush’s Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton – Blair is Bush’s “poodle,” as an anti-Blair & Bush British tabloid put it.

Obviously, there is SOMETHING to that description – revolving chiefly around Blair’s disturbing willingness to go along with Bush’s insane plan to invade and occupy Iraq, for no reason anyone with any knowledge of the Middle East can discern.

And, as my comrade Peter points out, Blair’s position on domestic political economy has had equally disturbing echoes of his “New Democrat” pal Clinton.

So why should we make a big deal out of a relationship that seems problematic along so many dimensions ???

The chief reason is that Blair’s response to the London bombings have been in marked – and positive – contrast to Bush’s after 9/11, a divergence we think is not only significant in and of itself,

but also substantiates the line we have taken about their relationship since 9/11, which, not surprisingly, varies considerably from both the polar opposite “poodle” and “staunch principled allies” lines.

Basically, our view has been that, in the immediate aftermath of September 11, the Europeans – Blair, Schroeder, Chirac, and Putin – got together and decided that one of them had to stick close to Bush,

who had scared the shit out of them and a lot of other people BEFORE 9/11 with his blatant efforts to start a “new cold war” with China – as well as his rejection of US participation in the Kyoto treaty and the International Criminal Court (how prophetic is THAT ???) –

and who were genuinely nervous about his immature and blustery – and, in retrospect, completely bogus – rhetoric about “Osama dead or alive,” fearing – reasonably – that he would do something really psychotic on a massive scale, using 9/11 as the rationale.

The obvious choice for this choice duty was Blair, given not only the historic “special relationship” between the US and Britain after World War II, but also the fact that the mono-lingual Bush would have to be spoken to in English, the only language he understands even minimally.

To his credit, for the first several months, Blair did his duty, making every effort to counteract the insane, Christian-right-oriented foreign policy consistently pushed by gay homophobe Karl Rove …

Very few people disputed the value – on many levels – of overthrowing the Taliban … indeed, my only regret is that this didn’t happen BEFORE March 2001, when they blew up the amazing Buddhist statues at Bamyan … Pat Tillman died a “hero’s death” … everything seemed to going just fine …

And then came the insane obsession with Iraq …

and, just as he had with Colin Powell / the pathetic Washington Democrats / the craven White House press corps / most of the sadly ill-informed American people –

altho certainly not most of the rest of the world, as well as any Americans who actually knew something about the Arab / Muslim world (which Tom Friedman apparently no longer does, assuming he ever did) –

Bush managed to trap Blair into going along with his mad plans to invade and occupy Iraq …

Obviously, this was a HUGE mistake for Blair – as it was for Silvio Berlusconi – both of whom ended up having their asses handed to them domestically by voters who realized more clearly than they did what a bizarre mistake Iraq was going to turn out to be …

So the relatively kind words we have for Blair don’t come from ignorance, or excusing the grievous error he made in going along with Bush on Iraq …

That said, we always felt Blair looked distinctly UN-comfortable saying the ridiculous things he had to as part of the overall scheme …

And that suspicion has been confirmed, in our view, by both the general line Blair has been taking in the aftermath of the London bombings, one distinctly different from what Bush said and did after 9/11 –

and the specific things he said in a crucial speech Saturday to a Labour Party meeting in London,

above all, regarding the domination of Muslim public discourse – throughout the ummah Islamiyyah, including Europe and the US – by the “analysis” and legitimation dynamics of political Islam –

and how that “analysis” and legitimation were the key factors in creating the mind-set of both the people who did the London bombings AND those whose reaction was, “not a good idea, but very understandable, given how badly Muslims are victimized in the world” …

In this context, as briefly mentioned in a previous post, we think Blair – whose large domestic Muslim population (unlike the relatively small one in the US) will leave him no choice but to confront realities Bush could easily avoid –

will now start to move away from the death-grip in which Bush has enveloped him for what must have felt like more than the almost four years it has persisted …

In this post-7/7 phase, we think Blair will slowly but surely establish an identity separate from Bush … one that will not only increase his popularity at home,

but will also – for the first time since 9/11 – make a genuine VALUES confrontation with political Islam a STRUCTURAL component of the Western response it has so conspicuously lacked while George Bush was allegedly “in charge” …

So good luck to Blair in moving away from Bush – it should not only help his political fortunes at home, and restore the stature that his mis-begotten relationship with Bush over Iraq has so badly damaged …

but also infuse some substance and realism into what has been a heretofore pathetic Western “response” to the challenge of political Islam …

in which case, we may well look in retrospect at Blair’s response to 7/7 as a positive turning point in what has so far been the “dialogue of the deaf” that has characterized Western / Muslim relations since the outbreak of the third phase of the Millennium Crisis on September 11, 2001 …