 British Prime Minister Tony Blair may be aces with Rupert Murdoch (perhaps he'll even get a job as a Fox News analyst once he finally, finally steps down from 10 Downing Street...) but he sure isn't looking too manly with the British public these days, particularly after getting "the treatment" from George Dubya and his dinner roll at the G8 last week. The Guardian's Andrew Rawnsley twists the butter knife thusly:
You will have your own view - there's so much to choose from - on which part of the open-mic conversation between George W Bush and Tony Blair at the Yo Summit was the most toe-curling. One of my favourite excruciating moments is when Bush thanks Blair for sending him a Burberry sweater as a birthday gift. The American President sends up the British Prime Minister by mocking: 'I know you picked it out yourself.' There's no question which exchange is most enjoyable for those with contempt for the Prime Minister. It is the moment that makes Mr Blair look like the poodle of popular caricature. Worse, he comes over as a poodle who can't even beg his master to toss him a dog biscuit. It is the same bit of the encounter that has caused the most wincing among the Prime Minister's friends.
When Tony Blair offers himself as a Middle East peace envoy, he is casually rebuffed by the American President between bites on a bread roll. Told by Bush that 'Condi is going', the normally fluent Blair is reduced to inarticulate jabbering. 'Well, it's only if, I mean, you know, if she's got a... or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.' Yeah, just talk.
It was awful for Tony Blair to be caught asking for permission to go to the Middle East. It was dire to hear George Bush saying he wouldn't let the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom go out - not even on a pointless trip. It looks even more humiliating when the French Foreign Minister is going.
In the build-up to the action to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan, George Bush was delighted to let Tony Blair go globe-trotting as an ambassador-at-large. The American President was happy to use Mr Blair in the same way on the road to war in Iraq. When it does not suit the White House, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is grounded.
The foreign policy realists in the British government will argue that a Blair trip to the Middle East would have no chance of achieving anything without American support. But that serves to underline a truth about Britain as an international actor which this country doesn't like to hear and Tony Blair doesn't want to tell. Britain has no independent leverage on any of the players in this crisis. When Sir Menzies Campbell pressed him to do more about the escalating conflagration in Lebanon, the Prime Minister replied testily: 'May I just point out that our influence with Hizbollah has been somewhat limited.' British influence over Israel, Iran or Syria is also 'somewhat limited'.
The only favour done to the Prime Minister by the broadcast of his rap with George Bush has been to illustrate a little of what he has been up against over the past five years in dealing with this American President. We have been frequently told by his defenders that, whatever verbal dyslexia he may display in public, the private Bush is as smart as a whip, with a sophisticated grasp of the complexities of the geopolitical situation. Analysing the carnage unfolding in Lebanon, the view of the American President is this: 'What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.'
There's more, but I'm laughing to hard to cut and paste it for you just now...
Related:
The mystery of the Bush-Blair jumper solved!
British reactions to the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon (and what the Americans and British are doing about it -- or not doing, as the case may be) ... short version: not good.
Tags: Bush, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Tony Blair, Politics, News, UK, Current Affairs, G8 Summit |
