The Scotsman reports that British Prime Minister has basically said “no dice” to Washington if it opts for a military strike on Iran:
TONY Blair has told George Bush that Britain cannot offer military support to any strike on Iran, regardless of whether the move wins the backing of the international community, government sources claimed yesterday.
Amid increasing tension over Tehran’s attempts to develop a military nuclear capacity, the Prime Minister has laid bare the limits of his support for President Bush, who is believed to be considering an assault on Iran, Foreign Office sources revealed.
The question here, however, is whether this is the line for official consumption or the real position of the British government. The Iraq war and George Bush are already unpopular in Great Britain — and George Bush’s popularity there isn’t better than it is in the United States (where his numbers are heading in the vicinity of the South Pole). So the key question is whether there is TACIT support for a U.S. strike on Iran, if one is deemed necessary. MORE:
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is calling on the United Nations to consider new sanctions against Tehran when the Security Council meets next week to discuss the developing crisis. Blair is expected to support the call for a “Chapter 7” resolution, which could effectively isolate Iran from the international community.
But, in the midst of international opposition to a pre-emptive strike on Tehran, and Britain’s military commitments around the world, the government maintains it cannot contribute to a military assault. “We will support the diplomatic moves, at best,” a Foreign Office source told Scotland on Sunday. “But we cannot commit our own resources to a military strike.”
Meanwhile, a new report on the Iran crisis has warned that neo-conservatives in the Bush administration are on “collision course” with Tehran.
The Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), often referred to as Blair’s “favourite think-tank”, will appeal for a greater effort to find a diplomatic solution in a report to be published later this week. FPC director Stephen Twigg, formerly a Labour minister, explained: “It is essential UK policy on Iran is well informed… We want to engage with the various reformist elements in Iran, both inside and outside the structures of power.
“There is potential for political dialogue, economic ties and cultural contacts to act as catalysts for the strengthening of civil society in Iran.”
So the prevailing view (apparently) is that there is no need for military action yet, that diplomacy can still yield some results. However, that was also the prevailing view in the run-up to the Iraq war….and which course eventually mutated into reality?
UPDATE: Perhaps Blair is moving more cautiously on this issue because he’s now in the same position as Bush: falling poll numbers have diminished his clout. The Washington Post:
When Blair was elected at the age of 43, the youngest prime minister since 1812, “He walked on water, it was like he could do no wrong,” said Ben Page, director of the Ipsos MORI polling firm.
Now his approval ratings have fallen to just over 30 percent. Nearly half of people polled by the London newspaper the Times this month wanted Blair to resign now or by the end of the year. Fifty-seven percent agreed that “Blair had run out of steam and is unlikely to achieve anything else as prime minister.”
But when will he go? Blair refuses to say. But he set off speculation even before his election to a third term last May, when he said he did not intend to seek a fourth term. That was widely interpreted as meaning he would step aside before his term ends; British law requires an election by 2010 at the latest. All the uncertainty has fueled debilitating speculation about exactly when he might go.
Ominously for Blair, much of the weariness with him is coming from places such as Islington, the north London neighborhood almost synonymous with Blair and his “New Labor” revolution. It’s a mix of fancy Georgian homes from the 18th century and public housing projects.
Just as Bush is losing some of the pillars of his support…so is Tony Blair losing some of the pillars of his support.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.