Bush Leaves Staunchest Ally Blair Clinging to Very Little

British Prime Minister Tony Blair came to Washington on Friday looking for only a fig leaf to justify his enlistment in a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. President Bush sent him home grasping even for that.

If anyone ought to have influence with Bush on Iraq, it’s Blair. The two men start with very different ideologies: Bush an increasingly aggressive conservative, Blair a third-way centrist close on most issues to former President Clinton. But the prime minister has been Bush’s staunchest ally in the war against terror since the attacks of Sept. 11.

That steadfast support has exposed Blair to increasing dissent from within his own Labor Party and contributed to a precipitous fall in his poll numbers from a British public skeptical of war. Blair has climbed out on a limb as far as one head of state ever does for another.

Bush is determined not to give other countries or the United Nations a veto over American actions; but even a president so committed to maintaining his freedom of maneuver would have to think twice about launching an invasion of Iraq without support from Britain. If Blair somehow pulled out, it would surely be a signal for other nations on the fence to opt out -- and for those already opposed, like France and Germany, to redouble their resistance.

Yet Bush, at the leaders’ joint press conference Friday, made only the most grudging of concessions to Blair’s political needs. Arriving in Washington, Blair’s top priority was to win Bush’s commitment to pursue a second resolution at the United Nations authorizing an invasion if Saddam Hussein doesn’t imminently disarm -- a step Blair believes is essential to both broadening international support and tolerance in England for an attack.

At the press conference, Bush did Blair the slim favor of not rejecting the idea outright. But Bush made clear he viewed a second resolution as at best a sideshow, at worst a distraction. “Should the United Nations decide to pass a second resolution,” Bush said offhandedly, “it would be welcomed.”

In this instance, grammar may be a window to the soul. Notice Bush’s passive construction: It would be welcomed. Not: “I would welcome it.” Nor did Bush put the onus for building a majority for a new resolution on the U.S.; the decision, he said, belonged to the U.N.

To underscore his distance from the idea, Bush insisted, with more active language, that he believes the resolution the U.N. approved last fall on Iraq “gives us the authority to move without any second resolution.” Which says to Blair, in effect: Go ahead and try to pass more language, but I’m sending in the tanks either way. In weeks, not months.

Once the process starts rolling, U.S. diplomats may join the British in pushing a second resolution. But Bush could not have been much more contemptuous of the idea -- Blair’s top priority -- if he had held up a sign that said: “Who cares?”

The irony is that bending more to Blair might improve Bush’s own domestic political situation. Polls consistently show much more support among Americans for an attack with explicit U.N. authorization than without it. Another resolution would also provide cover for the congressional Democrats who are bucking the rising antiwar sentiment in their party to support Bush on Iraq.

But an explicit new U.N. imprimatur for invasion is even more important to Blair. It would help ease tensions with his European neighbors much more skeptical about war. And it would greatly strengthen his hand against skeptics at home.

The overall level of resistance to war is higher in Britain than in the U.S. In a January poll by the MORI Social Research Institute, a leading independent survey firm, just 15% of the British said their country should participate in an attack without U.N. sanction. That’s daunting enough. But polls show war wariness is greater among voters from Blair’s Labor Party than in the opposition Conservative Party.

That’s the core of Blair’s problem. It’s easier for Bush to slough off opposition to war because it is most fervent among Americans less likely to vote for him anyway. But by backing Bush, Blair is directly confronting his own voters -- and his own party members in Parliament. Some Blair allies believe one-fourth or more of the Labor Party members in the House of Commons might oppose a resolution committing Britain to an invasion not blessed by the U.N.

Blair has such a lopsided majority he would still almost certainly win that vote (likely with help from the Conservatives). But such an open schism could only put further downward pressure on his approval rating, which skidded to just 33% in a poll MORI released Sunday. That’s his lowest level in more than two years.

Like the U.S. Democrats supporting Bush, Blair would be in a much more defensible position with another U.N. resolution explicitly endorsing an invasion. Last month’s MORI survey found that 61% of Brits overall (and 68% of Labor members) said they would support British participation in those circumstances.

Because Blair’s interests so closely track their own, congressional Democrats, in recent meetings with British officials, had been urging Blair to lean hard on Bush to go back to the U.N.; the Democrats were hoping the prime minister had more leverage at the White House than they did. It turned out that leverage wasn’t as much as Blair, or the Democrats, might have hoped.

As at each earlier stage in this confrontation, Bush is betting that if he holds to his course, others will be pulled in his direction, however grudgingly. At home it looks like Bush can win that bet. The call from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) for another congressional vote on war has received a cool response. And three of the leading four candidates for the Democratic 2004 presidential nomination -- Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri -- have all said privately that while they would prefer Bush seek a second U.N. resolution, they would support an attack without it.

Blair’s next move isn’t so certain. On Tuesday, Blair tries to sell the case for war to French President Jacques Chirac. Blair is trying to transform the thin reed he wheedled out of Bush -- tolerance, if not endorsement, of a second U.N. resolution -- into a bridge to the Europeans now dubious of invasion. At their news conference, Bush made clear he expects Blair will saddle up even if that remains a bridge too far.

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Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ Web site at: www.latimes.com/brownstein.