Our Brit Poodle, Off His Leash

Brown is well disposed to the United States, but most of his close friends have been in the Federal Reserve Bank, the Finance Department and other economic institutions. Alan Greenspan has been an admirer, as have other important Americans.

Brown has had little involvement or interest in foreign affairs and has made little contribution to these highly charged debates over the past 10 years. That has partly been because he was content to submerge himself in financial and economic policy. However, it reflects the deal he made with Blair when the latter became leader of the Labor Party in 1994. Brown had expected to become leader, but when it became clear that Blair had far more support, Brown offered to stand down if he was recognized as the number two in the land.

The result has made him as powerful in relation to Blair as Vice President Cheney has been to Bush. He has been very quiet on Iraq, in part because foreign policy was not his brief but also because he was highly sensitive to the unpopularity of the government's policy with his Labor colleagues.

If Brown becomes prime minister, he will have no intention of clashing with Bush or of pursuing an anti-American foreign policy. But there is little doubt that he will neither wish, nor be able, to replicate the umbilical link that appears to exist been Bush and Blair.

Brown is considerably brighter than Blair but he does not begin to have Blair's political skills or his ability to win the enthusiasm or affection of those who are not his natural allies. He has little charm, can be abrasive and demands total loyalty. To describe him as a cross between Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld might be appropriate, though it would probably offend all three of them.

Brown admires the United States and likes Americans. But his political survival in Britain will require him to have a correct rather than a warm relationship with Bush. Britain, under him, will continue to draw down its forces in Iraq while giving diplomatic support to Washington even if the president continues to fight on. This may not seem logical, but it will meet the political imperative. It will suit both the president and the new prime minister to stand shoulder to shoulder even if the body language is cool and the empathy less obvious than it has been in recent times.

The same will apply if the opposition Conservative Party, under new leader David Cameron, comes to power in the next general election. It is not due for two to three years. By that time, the United States will have a new president and Iraq will either be improving or have already collapsed into a vicious civil war. Whatever the controversies of the past, both a Brown and a Cameron government would recognize the need to rebuild stability and good governance in Iraq, and would recognize the need for American leadership in that endeavor.

The Conservatives, who originally supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, have been distancing themselves from Blair since it emerged that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and as Iraq has slid into anarchy. (Some Conservatives, myself included, opposed the war from the beginning.) But the Conservatives, unlike some elements of the Labor Party, have no history of anti-Americanism and will want to work closely with either a Republican or Democratic administration. They already have close links with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and will be wishing to develop them with other presidential candidates. A handshake, however, with the current incumbent of the White House is, I'm afraid, no longer seen as an automatic vote-winner back home.

It would be wrong to ignore the fact that the Iraq war and the unilateral, Manichaean foreign policy of the Bush presidency has had a profound impact on British opinion. I represent Kensington and Chelsea in the House of Commons. They are the two wealthiest districts in the United Kingdom. Most of their residents are high-earners. Overwhelmingly they vote Conservative. By a margin of about 3 to 1, these instinctive pro-Americans have been highly critical of U.S. foreign policy over the past five years.

That mood is far from irreversible. The basic empathy with the United States remains. There is little evidence of British public opinion turning to the European Union as an alternative to the United States in its affections.

Many years ago, Churchill remarked that you can always rely on the United States to do the right thing -- after it has tried every other option. There is much hope, and some evidence, that that is where we may now be heading.

rifkindm@parliament.uk

Sir Malcolm Rifkind is a former foreign secretary and a former defense secretary of the United Kingdom. He is member of Parliament for Kensington and Chelsea.