From the outset, Kendall Myers appeared determined to explode what he described as the “myth” of the special relationship between Britain and the United States. It had never existed, he said in his opening remarks, “or, at least, not one that we noticed”.
Instead, relations had been “altogether too one-sided” for a very long time. “The poodle factor did not begin with Tony Blair, it began, yes, with Winston Churchill.”
At this point Dr Myers acknowledged that “as an employee of the State Department” he perhaps ought not to say so much. But analysis is what he does for Condoleezza Rice, he was at an academic forum — speaking at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington on Tuesday night — and his provocative historical views were gathering an unstoppable momentum.
He cited Britain’s refusal to get embroiled in Vietnam during the 1960s as an example of what might have been done on Iraq. “Harold Wilson, who was a great deal more clever, in my opinion, that Tony Blair, managed to fool us all on Vietnam — where the deal was not one cent, not one Johnny, not one Bobby.
Advertisement
“He succeeded by sounding good but doing nothing. Blair got it the other way around and in the end joined us in the Iraq adventure. If you can leap forward 25 years or so and write that biography of Blair one would have to say that one of the most brilliant prime ministerships of modern times was brought a cropper by the Iraq war. He will never recover, he has been ruined for all time . . . that is tragic.”
Dr Myers said that he could not think of anything to put on “the asset side of the ledger” for the Prime Minister other than being an articulate advocate of the war and foil for Mr Bush. “When Tony said it, at least the words strung along eloquently.” But he added: “Unfortunately, Tony Blair’s background was as an actor, not as an historian. If only he had read a book on the 1920s [when Britain briefly occupied Iraq], he might have hesitated.”
The key factor in Mr Blair’s decision to go to war was based on a particular perception of the special relationship, which was “when America declares a major issue of national interest, the British will not oppose”.
Although he acknowledged that “the way the Iraq war developed it would have been extremely difficult for Tony Blair to have done a Harold Wilson,” he added that the Prime Minister really seemed to believe in the justice of this war and the idea that he could influence American foreign policy.
“The British have a kind of tough-minded strategic sense of things politically in the Middle East and the world as a whole. We typically ignore them and take no notice. We say, ‘There go the British telling us how to run the empire — let’s park them’. It’s a sad business.”
Advertisement
Although Dr Myers said that the institutional relationship — not least between the Foreign Office and his own department — would survive, he predicted that Britain would have to reconsider its role as a bridge between America and Europe after the ructions of Iraq.
“Britain has moved closer to Europe, crab-like, and London is now much more like a European city — with European prices, I might add. But I think the British are still where they have been all along, unable to answer the fundamental question of ‘after Empire, what?’.”
In a brutal verdict on the cornerstone of Mr Blair’s diplomacy, he said: “Tony Blair could sound European on a good day, he could occasionally pronounce French well, and wear blue jeans with the best Americans. But the role of Britain acting as a bridge between Europe and America is disappearing before our eyes.”
He added that “in a certain sense I hope they [Britain] break it with us” because it was important for Britain to have stronger bonds with the EU. “But what I think and fear is that Britain will draw back from the US without moving closer to Europe. In that sense, London’s bridge is falling down.”
Mr Myers was asked by The Times if Mr Blair could have extracted more for his support of the war, or whether Britain was always going to be taken for a ride by Mr Bush. He replied: “It was a done deal from the beginning — it was a one-sided relationship that was entered into, I think, with open eyes.”
Advertisement
Mr Blair, he suggested, “hoped against hope that he could bring Mr Bush along, that he could convince him” over wider engagement on issues such as the Middle East peace process. “But George Bush has many other dimensions, both politically and intellectually.”
He said that the deal was crystallised for him by the Commons debate in 2003, when Mr Blair made a “brilliant” case for British involvement in the war. “Then [Donald] Rumsfeld said we did not need the British — that was sort of the giveaway.
“I feel a little ashamed and a certain sadness that we have treated him like that. And yet there it was — there was no payback, no sense of reciprocity in the relationship.”
He also had hard words for the US record in the war. “It’s a bad time, let’s face it. We have not only failed to do what we wanted to do in Iraq, but we have greatly strained our relationship with each other.” He said that Mr Bush and Mr Blair were going to have “a difficult reckoning”.
The other speakers on Tuesday night all agreed that, if there ever had been a special relationship, it would never again be quite as special as it had been during the Bush-Blair era — even though culture, economy and defence would still bind the two nations.
Advertisement
Anatol Lieven, a fellow of the New America Foundation, described how British public opinion had moved decisively against America, and not just against Mr Bush. Robin Niblett, director of the European programme at the Centre of Strategic and International Studies, said that the “Yo, Blair” moment, when the two leaders were recorded chatting during the G8 summit this year, had shown the Prime Minister to be in an “obsequious position”, which “gave the lie to the idea of private British influence”.
Mr Myers, meanwhile, had not finished with his historical comparisons. He said that Mr Blair’s relationship with Labour increasingly resembled that of Ramsay MacDonald, who was never forgiven by his party for forming a national government with the Tories in the 1920s.
But Labour, he said, had lacked the instinct to go for the jugular when it became clear their leader was a liability. “They have not had the courage or the audacity to do what the Conservative Party did with Margaret Thatcher. She had to be removed and they did it.”
He then noted that David Cameron, whom he described as “slightly more promising” than most of Baroness Thatcher’s many successors, had already “taken some distance from the United States — and politically it’s a shrewd move.
“It’s hard for me to believe that any British leader who will follow Tony Blair will maintain the kind of relationship [with the US] that he has. There will be a more distant relationship and certainly no more ‘wars of choice’ in the future.”
Advertisement
Mr Myers did praise Mr Blair’s legacy on Northern Ireland, calling it a success story for the Anglo-American relationship. But he ended by returning to the issue that has defined both President and Prime Minister: “If you are looking at this from the Moon it’s Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, and it does not look too pretty.”
Fighting off the hawks