Tony Blair

BUSH AND BLAIR, two leaders who have in common monosyllabic names beginning with "B" and spines of steel, are linked forever in history by their decision to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. In the last two days, the one has addressed his nation, the other his parliament about the coming war.

TONY BLAIR'S PROBLEMS will not end with the unseating of Saddam Hussein. Nor will they end when he crushes the revolt of the loony left in his party. He will still have to face the fact that his foreign policy--indeed, his view of the world in the 21st century--is in tatters.

Some time ago I upset Britain's prime minister by suggesting that his notion of becoming a bridge between the United States and Europe is a fantasy and that Britain would some day soon have to choose between America and a Europe dominated by a Franco-German axis.

THERE WAS A TIME--the 1960s, 1970s--when the political left in America favored wars of national liberation in countries ruled by dictators, some of them fascist dictators. True, the left would have installed communist dictatorships in their place. But at least leftists targeted enemies who were corrupt, brutal abusers of human rights.

Now the left has flipped. The effect of its crusade against war in Iraq would be the survival--indeed, the strengthening--of Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime.

London

IF A DILEMMA HAD more than two horns, Tony Blair would be impaled on all of them. He has to please his electorate, but only 15 percent agree with him that if a war is necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein, war it will be (with or without a new U.N. resolution). He has to please his European allies, but they are dead set against aligning themselves with America. He has to spend an enormous amount of time and energy on foreign affairs, although voters are calling for him to pay more attention to domestic matters.

Blackpool, England

"THE BASIC VALUES of America are our values too . . . and they are good values." To Americans, that statement by Prime Minister Tony Blair, in his speech to last week's annual Labour party conference, sounds uncontroversial, even banal. But to many of the rank-and-file members of his party, any praise of America, especially in the context of a statement of support for our position on Iraq, is praise too far.

LONDON

SINCE SEPTEMBER 11, British prime minister Tony Blair has enjoyed, in the eyes of Americans, his finest hour. His appearance in the Capitol gallery during President Bush's war address to a joint session of Congress marked a spirit of U.S.-British cooperation and goodwill that recalled the final years of World War II. Since then, Blair's emotional speeches on the moral case for the war and his willingness to send British troops to combat have suggested the possibility of a new Atlantic alliance and a deeper Bush-Blair partnership.

AS I WRITE LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON, brevity seems, even more than usual, the soul of wit. It would be foolish to try to say much about the current situation, early as it is in its development, and clouded as it is by the fog of war. Here are three brief observations.

(1) I'm as much of a Europe-basher (well, almost as much) as most of my fellow conservatives, but the Europeans really have been quite good since September 11. The peoples of Britain, Germany, and even France seem pretty thoroughly pro-American. The elites haven't been nearly as bad as one might have expected.

Cambridge, England

THE TERRORISTS wanted a war with America and they will get one, though they erred if they thought it would be the kind of pin-prick, slap-on-the-wrist war the United States has waged of late. Rather it will be the sustained, root-and-branch kind of war the United States tends to win.

It may even be a world war, with the United States once more leading a global alliance of democracies and civilized societies. The early responses from governments around the world are encouraging.

ON SEPTEMBER 12, BRITAIN’S CONSERVATIVE PARTY will tally 330,000 mail-in votes for party leader. At that point it will bestow upon either (a) the centrist former chancellor of the exchequer Kenneth Clarke or (b) the hard-line Thatcherite shadow defense minister Iain Duncan Smith what increasingly looks like the trickiest job in Western politics.

A little more than a decade after they ousted Margaret Thatcher as their party leader and prime minister, Britain’s Tories really ought to be riding high.

LONDON

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Tony Blair comes to America this week to meet our new president, and the P.M.'s team is worried. Blair's fondness for Third Way schmoozing with Bill Clinton, his justified gratitude for the role Clinton played in stitching together a semi-peace in Ireland, and his natural center-left leanings made him an ideal partner for the outgoing administration, and gave him clear reason for hoping that Al Gore would be the next president.

Yet it may prove not to be such a bad thing for U.S.-U.K. relations that the prime minister's wish didn't come to pass.