http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1094052,00.htmlBush entered into negotiations with Blair to act out something more like Hobbes's Leviathan. Blair had been put into the position of having to appear before the president as petitioner. He asked for relief on US steel tariffs; for the rendering of British prisoners at Guantanamo to Britain; and for US pressure on the Israel-Palestine peace process. But Blair was rebuffed.
Peter Riddell, in his book Hug Them Close, writes that from initial anxiety about representing British interests, Blair has grown to see Bush as something of a soulmate. Blair's rhetoric during the visit sounded trumpet notes as though it was still the call to the war in Iraq and the postwar realities had not intruded. Riddell reports that Blair in retrospect regards Bush's predecessor as "weird". That fact or factoid, true or not, may be interpreted as perhaps another gesture of ingratiation - demeaning Clinton is always deeply appreciated by Bush.
I recall being present at meetings between Blair and Clinton where, in 10 minutes, apparently difficult problems, including trade, were resolved to Britain's advantage. How weird was that?
Now Blair has equated the long-term interests aligning the US and the UK with adamantine support for the short-term strategies of the Bush administration. Yet the tighter the embrace, the weaker the influence. As Blair rightly insists, the US is the world's most powerful democracy and sets an example for the rest of the west: the rise of the welfare state in Britain followed the New Deal; Labour's resurgence of the mid-60s followed the New Frontier and the Great Society. Conversely, Margaret Thatcher followed the conservative reaction of Richard Nixon and became the partner for Ronald Reagan. Clinton was the trailblazer for Blair. Now Bush's America has taken a radical swerve toward authoritarian conservatism, creating an international undertow. Will Britain have a special exemption?