Iraq Could Force Blair Into Twilight

It is a question that leaves foreigners flummoxed: How can a man who has presided over two landslide election victories and a consistently strong economy be politically doomed? That, however, is the fate of Tony Blair after seven years as British prime minister. Even his closest allies wonder whether he might stand down this summer. They ask themselves: How could things have gone so badly wrong? By “things,” they invariably mean Iraq.

It is hard to overstate the effect the photographs of physical and sexual abuse in Abu Ghraib prison have had on UK politics. Paradoxically, pictures in a British newspaper purporting to show British soldiers torturing Iraqis have turned out to be fakes. And yet Blair finds himself guilty by association with a Bush administration that -- not to put too fine a point on it -- is reviled by many here.

If he is to survive, Blair must deal with a series of hurdles.

On June 10, elections will be held in the United Kingdom for local councils, members of the European Parliament and London’s mayor. Such is the gloom among the ruling Labor Party that it could come in third in many areas, behind a rejuvenated Conservative Party that is belatedly beginning to distance itself from the Iraqi war (after being at least as enthusiastic as Blair on the eve of the invasion) and behind the Liberal Democrats, which back in 2002 took a calculated risk in opposing the military action.

Blair’s allies are already putting the results down to traditional “midterm blues.” They have a point. Most of Labor’s parliamentarians elected since 1997 have not known political setbacks before. The British media are seemingly predisposed to hyperbole. Yet a pattern is emerging in opinion polls that suggests Blair is becoming more of a liability than an asset. These polls show that his party would benefit by being led by his most likely successor, the chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown.

Then comes the hand-over in Iraq on June 30. Blair is desperately hoping that the transfer of sovereignty will lead to both a lessening of the violence on the ground and of the political pressure back home. Neither is likely. Each incident -- each bombing, each U.S. attack on a town and each new photographic revelation of abuse -- prompts Britons to reassess the original decision to go to war.

Earlier this year, when Iraq appeared more stable, Blair was telling his aides he believed he could “move on.” Now they admit that is not possible, and several advisors in 10 Downing Street and in Parliament are urging him to confront the barrage of criticism he is facing. They are telling him he should do more to justify his original decision to go to war, to deal with the fact that weapons of mass destruction were never found, and to make it clear that his alliance with President Bush was one of convenience and that their two worldviews might have coincided but did not spring from the same well.

Blair has steadfastly refused. He shows no signs of contrition. He is adamant that somehow, sometime, he will be vindicated and that distancing himself from Bush now would be counterproductive and would smack of opportunism.

The prime minister may well not have intended to deceive the public, but, as one parliamentarian has succinctly put it, he did take Britain to war on a “false prospectus.”

Not only was there, it seems, no chemical or biological threat of note, but the other argument, the one Blair now says he favored -- of regime change as a means of delivering improved human rights -- has been blown asunder by the prison abuse scandal.

Through the failed reconstruction of Iraq, Blair is paying the price for his rush to war, his overconfident belief in his ability to influence Bush and his refusal to heed the pleas for caution on the eve of conflict not just from the United Nations but also from his own Cabinet, including, as I revealed in my book, from his foreign secretary, Jack Straw.

When Blair came to power in 1997, Britain was crying out for a more modern leader, one who could combine the free market with social cohesion and stronger education and health systems.

Internationally, Britain was looking for a leader who could combine a new pro-Europeanism with a traditional pro-Americanism. Until Iraq -- Blair’s fifth military adventure in six years -- he triumphantly bestrode the world stage.

If the terrible pattern of events in Iraq abates, Blair might yet survive the summer and might yet lead Labor into another general election, but his hubris and naivete have destroyed what otherwise might have been a happier legacy.