Why Blair is holding back dossier

One of last week's mysteries can now be solved: why, having decided to recall Parliament, Tony Blair decreed that MPs should have to wait almost two weeks before getting together.

We can dismiss the notion that the dossier of evidence against Saddam Hussein could not be prepared any earlier. Had the Prime Minister wanted it ready for tomorrow, the document would have been finished today, even had this meant luckless Whitehall officials working through the night and over the weekend.

The real reason is different, and illustrates how much is happening away from the public gaze. It is that Mr Blair did not want to embarrass Gerhard Schr?der, the German Chancellor, ahead of next Sunday's German elections.

When I first heard this story - and before I had it confirmed from a quite different source - I was sceptical. Herr Schr?der has seemed to be wholly out of line with Britain and the United States. In part, he has fought his election campaign on an anti-war ticket. Indeed, this very policy has helped him to inch ahead of his Christian Democrat rival, Edmund Stoiber, in the polls.

However, behind the scenes, intense negotiations have been taking place. Downing Street now hopes that Herr Schr?der, if he wins again next Sunday, will seize on the dossier to say that the new evidence, not available on election day, shows that Iraq must not be allowed to persist in its defiance of the United Nations.

He will still warn against charging to war, and there will be no question of committing German troops. But he will help Britain and the United States in two vital ways. He will allow their aircraft to fly over Germany on their way to Iraq; and he will increase German participation in the peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia in order to release British and US forces for Iraq.

Had the dossier been released this week, Herr Schr?der would have faced intense pressure to say before election day whether the new evidence made any difference to his policies. His dilemma would have been acute. Had he replied "yes", he would have thrown his own election campaign into turmoil. Had his answer been "no", he would not only have offended Mr Blair mightily; he would also have helped Britain's antiwar faction to argue that the dossier changed nothing. No wonder that both Mr Blair and Herr Schr?der were so keen to wait until after next weekend.

That is just one example of the negotiations that are filling the back channels of international diplomacy. Mr Blair has two distinct objectives: to broaden the international consensus for decisive United Nations action, and to carry Labour MPs and public opinion at home. He has already made significant advances. He can take much credit for George Bush's decision to involve the UN. At home, he has survived his visit to the Trades Union Congress without being mauled, or even seriously heckled, and he has secured the strong and vocal support of Gordon Brown and John Prescott.

Jack Straw's weekend speech to the UN's General Assembly showed that it was perfectly possible for a hawk to wear a blue beret. More has still to be done. Mr Blair would like positive French support for a single UN resolution that authorised the use of force were Iraq to defy a deadline on readmitting arms inspectors. This would avoid the risk of UN backsliding in the face of Iraqi intransigence. So far the French have wanted to go down the more precarious two-resolution route: the first, to set a deadline, being tabled soon, but the second, authorising force, not being discussed until after the deadline has passed. Reconciling these rival tactics is one of this week's more sensitive tasks.

As delicate as the negotiations with Paris are those with Moscow and Tehran. Mr Blair is to meet President Putin next month. He is likely to endorse private American promises of a big economic role for Russia in a post-Saddam Iraq, and to tone down criticisms of Moscow's own disreputable campaign against the Chechen minority in Georgia.

As for Iran, Britain played a part last year in persuading Tehran to help defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. Hopes are rising in Downing Street that it will be equally helpful in tackling Saddam Hussein.

As yet there can be no guarantee that diplomacy will succeed or that, if war becomes imminent, the international coalition that is being built so painstakingly will hold together.

But Mr Blair has achieved much in the past 10 days. London and Washington do not look as isolated as once seemed likely; the debate about what to do next has rightly moved to the United Nations; the Saudi Arabians now support this route; and the Prime Minister has every chance to marginalise his critics on the Labour backbenches next week, and at the party conference at the end of this month.