With the countdown to war under way, British Prime Minister Tony Blair may be staking his career on a dubious gamble, reports Nyier Abdou in London Whether it's veteran Leftist and activist Tareq Ali bellowing "Bring down Blair!" at the Hyde Park rally on 15 February, or the pope reiterating to the British prime minister behind closed doors last Saturday his opposition to war in Iraq, Tony Blair has been standing on a shrinking island of support for the United States that is populated by few. In his address to the British House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon, Blair made an impassioned plea to bring months, if not years, of political waffling on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to an end, although he left a small window of opportunity open. "Even now we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully," Blair said, but he noted that disarmament was not a matter of time, but of will. "This time Saddam must understand. And now is the time for him to decide. Passive, rather than active cooperation will not do." He stressed that the threat of force has been effective: "Does anyone think Saddam would be making any concessions were it not for the US and UK troops massed on his doorstep?" Britain, along with the US and Spain, tabled a new Security Council resolution on Monday that would authorise the use of force in Iraq based on a failure to comply with Resolution 1441. Countered by a Franco-German initiative, itself backed by Russia and China, that calls for a more steadied approach, a potential war resolution will have to be the result of Olympian diplomatic efforts on the part of the US and Britain. Downing Street has called this week's Security Council ultimatum a "final push for peace", but as the British House of Commons was set to debate an Iraq proposal on Wednesday, it was growing increasingly clear that this may be Blair's final push for his premiership. Whether this becomes his last stand depends almost entirely on the outcome of a probable war in Iraq. "It's important to realise that, unlike [US President George W] Bush or [French President Jacques] Chirac, Blair is going against public opinion," says Matthew Taylor, director of the London-based think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Taylor told Al-Ahram Weekly that most people are "pragmatists". If Hussein is overthrown quickly, and the war can be painted as successful in that regard, the "opposition to the war will melt away like snow in springtime" and Blair will have been seen to have "done the right thing". If it goes "wrong" -- should there be prolonged and bloody intervention with a devastating humanitarian impact -- then Blair will face a brutal leadership challenge. This point was echoed by Jonathan Stevenson, senior fellow for counter-terrorism at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and editor of the group's publication Strategic Survey. If the outcome of energetic diplomatic wrangling is a "quick and merciful war" and the Iraqi people are seen to welcome American and British troops, then, Stevenson told the Weekly, "it all looks like a good decision -- and Blair survives." If not, then Blair's popularity will wane. Asked if he thought it possible that Britain will go along with the US even without a new resolution, Stevenson said that Blair has come "pretty close" to committing himself to Washington, even though such an action is both opposed by the majority of people in the UK and by a significant number of people in his own Labour Party. The result, he says, is that Blair is lodged "between a rock and a hard place". Britain has made it clear that with the new resolution on the table, it wants to see a decision made within the next few weeks. Though Blair's address to the Commons identified this is a last chance for Saddam, it is more likely that it is seen in Washington and Downing Street as a last chance to sway votes in the Security Council. In Britain, Blair has seen some formidable dissent coming out of the Church of England, with both the archbishops of Westminster and Canterbury saying they are not convinced that time has run out for weapons inspections. Asked if he thought that Blair had argued the "moral case", IPPR's Taylor says that he doesn't think this issue has ever been fundamentally about morality. "Ultimately, you have to ask yourself this: would Tony Blair be pressuring Bush to invade Iraq if [the Americans] didn't want to?" Taylor maintains that it is "very hard to imagine" that this is the case. But he added that, in some respects, Blair has been able to act as a tempering force on Washington's hawks, acting as a "bridge" between the international community and the American public. Noting that America is "arguably the most powerful nation the world has ever seen" -- in charge of a military of "unprecedented power" -- Taylor stressed that it is all the more crucial that America "behaves in a responsible manner". With American diplomacy increasingly disinterested in international interlocution, Taylor argues that it is to Blair's credit -- albeit credit shared by the anti-war movement -- that the majority of an American public historically "uninterested" in world opinion is "actually concerned" about a UN resolution authorising force. "Tony Blair deserves credit for this shift," he said. But the question still lingers whether the UK is an honest broker in this. It is not entirely clear that Blair genuinely wants to avoid war, although IISS's Stevenson disagrees. "I do think that Tony Blair is genuinely committed to being a trans-Atlantic bridge," he says, but if Britain is forced to choose between going with the anti-war sentiment that dominates Europe and a US- led war, it is "ultimately in [his] interest to support the US." Blair, says Stevenson, has, "in a somewhat 'un-Blairlike' way, gone out on a limb". But he adds that even in Washington, there is a feeling that avoiding an unpopular war is the preferable course. "It's not mere lip service." Asked if he thought that there is any "no- war scenario" left to debate, Taylor says that achieving a "significant shift" in the Security Council towards military intervention in Iraq could finally break through the wall of self-delusion in Baghdad. If Hussein clearly sees that war is inevitable, argues Taylor, "Why sit and wait to be killed?" But he admitted that the chances that there will be no war is unlikely -- a point echoed by Stevenson. Saying that he felt it hard to find the elusive "third way" out of this crisis, Stevenson maintains that it is "difficult to imagine that arms control could bear sufficient fruit to satisfy the US." The only scenario he can see unfolding that would avert all-out war would, in fact, have to come after military action was already initiated -- that is, either Hussein would immediately capitulate to US- UK demands, or some "other action", like a coup, would end the necessity for further military action. Two weeks after Britain raised a security alert that brought military troops and tanks to London's major airports, the city is still on edge. London Mayor Ken Livingstone publicly resigned himself to an inevitable terrorist attack in the city, saying earlier this month that "someone will one day get through with something". The timing of the alert comes as the leadership most seeks support for war in Iraq, but claims that the government is fostering paranoia in order to bolster support holds no water with either Taylor or Stevenson. Most people, they argue, believe that war in Iraq will inflame anti-Western sentiment and engender a new crop of terrorists. "I don't think that argument ever made any sense," says Stevenson. The idea that the UK would be trying to scare people into supporting the war "makes absolutely no sense".
