Like most successful politicians, Blair is also a fortunate politician. His stroke of luck was that many in Britain had recently followed the high-profile and singularly unsuccessful efforts of French diplomats and politicians to secure the release of two kidnapped French journalists. Throughout the hostage dramas of the 1980s in Lebanon, British governments came in for frequent criticism that they were not doing enough and that their approach was defeatist. This time, though, British officials could cite the French example as proof that even the most energetic efforts had brought no result.
Opinion polls show that the British public is more resigned than indignant. Asked if there was anything Blair could or should do to obtain Bigley's release, the public was initially split, 50-50. The tally soon settled almost 70-30 in favor of the view that there was nothing the prime minister could do, and it stayed that way until news came of Bigley's death. In other words, Britons had few illusions about the prime minister's power to influence kidnappers -- or indeed any other aspect of the continuing hostilities in Iraq. Indeed, as news of the hostage's beheading broke, Bigley's Liverpool-based relatives said that they believed the government had done everything possible to secure his release "in this impossible situation."
Grim reminder: The fate of hostage Kenneth Bigley put more pressure on Tony Blair, placing the Iraq war back at the center of British politics.
(Reuters)
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This does not mean, however, that the Bigley case has been without fallout for Blair or that it will not continue to affect the prime minister, who plans to go for a third term in elections expected next year. Bigley's plight brought the Iraq war back into the headlines. It ensured that the Labor Party conference scheduled a debate on Iraq -- albeit one that was stage-managed in almost Stalinist style. Accusations that U.S. authorities had scuttled a deal to release the two female scientists gave the lie to the British government's boast that real sovereignty now rested with the interim Iraqi government. Worst of all, it made the prime minister look once again like a very junior partner of George Bush Inc.
Bigley's death reminds the British that, where Iraq is concerned, they have made their bed with the Americans -- something Blair has tried hard to make them forget. Until the kidnapping, the British government had tried to create the impression that Iraq had become an exclusively American problem. The government rejected all suggestions from the Bush administration that it might increase troop strength in Iraq or expand its operational area. All the reported violence was in the U.S. zone of occupation. U.S. troops were blamed for heavy-handed tactics. When the Conservative Party's defense spokesman noted, in a radio interview, that British troops around Basra were back in hard helmets and armored transports and were being subjected to attacks, this was news to many people.
Downing Street had also done a consummate job of minimizing Blair's public contact with Bush and senior administration officials. Bilateral visits were kept formal and, if possible, under wraps. Photographs à deux at international gatherings, such as the G8 summit, were avoided. Britain's foreign secretary, not Blair, represented Britain at the recent U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. If you ask his office when Blair plans to collect the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor he was awarded more than a year ago, you are told no date has been set.
The British government instead has recently made a show of Blair's personal affairs and public contacts with Europe and other countries. When the American survey group released its report last week that there were most likely no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the invasion, Blair was traveling between Sudan and Ethiopia. Blair's minor heart procedure immediately after the party conference, preceded by his statement that he planned a third term in office but not a fourth, preoccupied the chattering classes to the exclusion of all else.
Bigley's horrifying captivity and death are unlikely to represent the last Iraq storm Blair will have to weather. An outcry is already brewing about over the survey group's report on Iraq's weapons. When Parliament reconvenes this week, Blair will face renewed pressure to issue a formal apology for supporting what a growing constituency regards as the U.S. president's ideologically inspired war. There is now a real possibility that in trying to cement the special relationship by following the Americans to Iraq, Blair may have accelerated its dissolution.
Author's e-mail: marydejevsky@aol.com
Mary Dejevsky, chief editorial writer of London's Independent, was the newspaper's Washington bureau chief from 1997 to 2001.
