Backing Bush wins no votes and no thanks

Hell no, they won't go. The Europeans, the Gulf states, Nelson Mandela, the Russians, the Chinese, even American Republican grandees, they are all coming out against the White House War Party. The number of foreign friends on whom George W Bush can call is rapidly shrivelling into the smallest club in the world, a club with a membership of just one. Whereas everyone else with any sort of clout is expending their energy warning the United States against striking at Iraq, when support for a war is declining even in the United States, yesterday Tony Blair made his most passionate appeal yet for the imperative of dealing with Saddam Hussein.

There is something rather admirable about the Prime Minister's willingness to put himself on such an isolated limb. Never again can he be stereotyped as a politician governed solely by craven adherence to the focus group and the opinion poll. The latest poll of British opinion produces a majority of almost three to one against any military enterprise in Iraq.

The more loudly the drums of war are beaten, the more vociferous are the regiments of opposition within the Labour Party. Even John Burton, the ultra-loyalist agent in the Prime Minister's own constituency, the man who first talent-spotted Mr Blair when he was a London barrister looking for a safe seat, even Mr Burton reports that party members in Sedgefield are not convinced by their MP.

The majority of Mr Blair's Cabinet share the widespread apprehension that any American venture into Iraq would backfire with the most catastrophic consequences for the region and the world. The Prime Minister is currently allied with Dubya and Iain Duncan Smith against most of the Labour Party: not a course which would be recommended to him by any sage political strategist.

Tony Blair is not an idiot, he is not a masochist and he is not mad. So there is only one persuasive explanation why he has placed himself in such an exposed place. I think he is sincere when he says that he believes that it is simply "the right thing to do".

He must be convinced that Saddam Hussein represents a clear and present danger so great that it is worth hazarding many of the goals of his premiership - perhaps even the premiership itself - for the cause of prosecuting action against the Iraqi dictator.

One certain consequence of war is a surge in the price of oil which would threaten to tip the already fragile economies of the West into recession. The growth forecasts upon which the Government depends to deliver better public services would go up in smoke - and, with them, Labour's central strategy for re-election.

A war in Iraq would also add a further formidable handicap to Mr Blair's mission to take Britain into the European single currency. Not because a war would necessarily-have much influence on voter opinion about the euro; more because any Prime Minister can only do one big thing at a time. It's not humanly possible for Mr Blair to be simultaneously engaged in hostilities against Saddam and a battle for the euro.

MR Blair's willingness to be so unstintingly supportive of this White House is all the more remarkable when he has received so little from the Americans in reciprocation. His private appeals to George Bush to attend the Earth Summit were rudely snubbed. Despite the large concessions already made to the United States, America still won't commit to the International Court to bring war criminals to justice.

While the Prime Minister bends all his powers of persuasion to the effort to construct support for action against Saddam, the Americans seem pathologically determined to alienate their allies and hand ammunition to their opponents.

The first step towards buildingany kind of international legitimacy for an assault on Iraq is to get a mandate from the United Nations.

By pouring so much scorn on that notion, the American hawks have allowed the Iraqis to portray the issue of weapons inspections as a pretext for a military attack which the United States was always determined to launch in any circumstances.

The case for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq could be persuasive, but it rests on proving that the policy of deterrence and containment has failed. There may be compelling evidence that Saddam has or is near to acquiring nuclear weapons, but if such evidence exists, the Americans have yet to provide it.

Mr Blair implicitly conceded that the propaganda war against Saddam has been woefully mishandled with the promise that the long-awaited "dossier" against the Iraqi dictator will now be published in a few weeks' time.

His own Government has been extremely disciplined about containing its divisions. In so much as any ministerial dissent has surfaced, it has only done so by nod and wink.

No one in the British Government- - even Clare Short has managed to restrain herself - has let rip with their hostility to the Bush administration. From the other side of the Atlantic comes a cacophony of confusion about the intentions of the White House.

It is hard to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone who keeps barging about all over the place.

The effort of doing so has put the British leader in a posture where he can be widely depicted, in his own country and abroad, as Mr Bush's poodle. Wounded as he clearly is by that suggestion, the Prime Minister continues to offer himself as America's most steadfast friend and ambassador.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on the Twin Towers, Tony Blair told George Bush: "We will be with you to the last." This is proving to be more literally true than Mr Blair surely imagined at the time that he uttered that rhetorical flourish.

When self-interest and selfpreservation would counsel a much more prudently detached approach from the Prime Minister, his willingness to make a principle of standing alone with such a lonely President is highly creditable. As it is also deeply perilous.