Blair hitch project: how Clinton's ideological fellow traveler became Bush's closest ally - On Political Books

Washington Monthly, March, 2004 by Kenneth S. Baer

"Be his friend. Be his best friend. Be the guy he turns to." That was the advice Bill Clinton gave his close ally and ideological fellow traveler, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, weeks before Clinton was to hand over the reins of power to George W. Bush.

In the annals of diplomacy, it's not the most sophisticated theory of great-power politics, but it proved to be effective. In their first joint news conference in February 2001, when asked if the two leaders had anything in common, Bush responded that they both used Colgate toothpaste. Many--including those in Blair's inner circle--thought that dentifrice was the beginning and end of the discussion. After all, Blair was not only Clinton's buddy and contemporary, at ease among the cosmopolitan elites of Britain and the United States; he was the co-architect of the "Third Way" progressive response to the conservatism that Bush held dear. More than that, as National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice explained to a British official early in his term, "You should really know, the President doesn't feel comfortable with Europeans. He much prefers Latin Americans."

Despite his lack of Hispanic heritage, Blair and the new president did become friends, and their bond deepened after the attacks of September 11. Bush had no stronger ally in the buildup to and invasion of Iraq than Blair. He withstood defections from his party's backbenches, protests in the streets of London, and growing alienation from his allies in Western Europe to back the United States. In the run-up to the war, Vice President Cheney, in the words of one Blair aide, "waged a guerrilla war" against the British prime minister's desire to pass another U.N. resolution before the invasion. The Pentagon locked Britain out of post-war planning for Iraq, and it seemed that every time that Bush got in trouble--such as when questions arose surrounding his claim that Iraq tried to acquire nuclear material from Niger--he blamed the British. Yet through it all, Blair never wavered in his support for Bush's plans.

How and why Bill Clinton's best friend became Bush's is part of the fascinating and important story Philip Stephens tells in his new biography, Tony Blair: Making of a World Leader. Stephens, a long-time Blair watcher and senior editor at the Financial Times, provides in this lively, intelligent, and accessible book valuable insight into Blair's background and political ideology. He deftly traces the are of Blair's commitment to "community" from his spiritual awakening at Oxford to his domestic and foreign policy as prime minister. At home, his conviction meant rejecting the rightwing belief that all one needs to succeed is for government to get out of the way, and rejecting the left-wing view that all one needs is more centralized government. Abroad, this belief fostered Blair's keen appreciation of the interdependency of nations in the era of globalization and in the importance of countries working together to enforce global norms, using force where necessary.

Contrary, then, to what many of his critics charge, Blair, Stephens argues, while definitely a political animal, is not guided solely by tactical positioning. Indeed, fidelity to his philosophy is what made Blair natural allies alike with New Democratic reformer Clinton and with Republican crusader Bush.

Prime Minister's questions

Unlike many in his party's leadership, Tony Blair was not born into the family of Labour, but chose it. The son of a barrister, who himself harbored dreams of becoming a Tory MP, Blair grew up resolutely middle class in the northeastern city of Durham. He attended the elite Fettes College boarding school in Edinburgh and continued his studies at Oxford where he avoided student politics; but, as Stephens explains, those years in the city, of dreaming spires were critical in shaping Blair's political outlook. As an undergraduate, Blair underwent a religious awakening and was introduced to the work of the early 20th-century Scottish theologian John Macmurray.

Macmurray's central insight was that societies are not defined by the individuals within them, but rather communities are critical in shaping the lives of individuals. First through the family, and then through other wider networks in civil society, strong communities create mutually supportive environments in which individuals can realize their full potential. Transplanted into the political realm, this view compels one to reject both the libertarianism of the new right as well as the statism of the old left. To Blair, as he explained to Stephens in an interview last summer, Macmurray offered a philosophy of "how you retain the sense of solidarity without becoming the collectivization of society. And so that concept at the time struck me as the right concept politically, as well as theologically." That idea has stuck with him for his entire career.

In 1983, Blair--now married to another London barrister, Cherie Booth--was elected to Parliament at the high-water mark of Margaret Thatcher's dominance. It seemed to many that he had merely won a berth on the Titanic of British politics. But as with the Republican Party after Watergate or the Democrats after Mike Dukakis, this actually opened a window of opportunity, since Labour had no choice but to seek new ideas and leadership. Seizing the opening, Blair worked with his officemate Gordon Brown, another newly elected MP, and later with party, communications guru Peter Mandelson, to chart a new course--one built on the values of community and interdependence that Blair holds dear, as well as on the middle-class sensibilities that come naturally to him. In 1994, after three subsequent general election defeats, Blair was elected party leader, and immediately set out to create a new Labour Party.