A poster portraying President Bush as a war criminal hangs on a barricade outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of British Prime Minister Tony Blair



A Souring Relationship
Britain’s once-ironclad support for the Bush administration is wavering amid snide comments, satire and concern over Iraq and israel.

By Stryker McGuire
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE


March 20 — At first glance, the four-page supplement in London’s Observer looks like the sort of commemorative section that a lot of newspapers put out six months after September 11. But on closer examination it’s clear that this Sunday supplement is different.






• Yellow Pages
• Auctions at uBid
• Personals Channel
• Shopping
• Newsletters
• Weather




THE INTRODUCTION SAYS in part: “Taking his time, George W. Bush formulates a measured response—which turns out to be the most expensive bollocking ever unleashed against shepherds.” It concludes: “Today in these pages, we help you make up your own mind about the absolute necessity of fighting the ongoing war that is Operation Improving Bloodbath.”
Ouch. The rest of the page is filled with an iconic photo of the World Trade Center towers shrouded in smoke and flames—alongside the now-famous contemporaneous photo of President Bush, seemingly dazed and confused, as an aide whispers into his ear the terrible news of what has just happened in New York. Even given the distance between New York and London, and the six months between then and now, the Observer’s satire struck many of its readers as beyond the pale. Angry letters rained on the editor’s office, some in language even more pointed than that of the satire’s authors, Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris. A New Yorker who had seen the Observer, which sells about half a million copies a week, wrote simply, “F—k you.” Just as many letters, however, praised the paper for its verve, humor and, as one letter writer put it, “the balls to go with this.”
Ever since the New Year, the gloves are increasingly coming off as Britons reassess the long-running “special relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K.

The controversy barely extended beyond the Observer’s editorial offices. It got little or no pickup in the British press or among London’s large international press corps. But this is no tempest in a teapot. Ever since the New Year, the gloves are increasingly coming off as Britons reassess the long-running “special relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, when an estimated 60 or more British citizens were among the nearly 3,000 who died at the World Trade Center, Anglo-American solidarity was ironclad. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who traveled the world as Bush’s de facto First Missionary and coalition-builder, became a celebrity in America. But across the months, and as the war in Afghanistan segued into a possible attack on Iraq, cracks and then gaps began to appear in the transatlantic partnership.
Those differences may be overlooked in the United States, but they are now, in some cases, yawning and ugly. London’s Independent newspaper on Wednesday carried a political cartoon that could not have been plainer in its message. It shows Bush as a bucket-toting Uncle Sam against the smoking backdrop of war’s ruination. The caption reads: “I want you limeys to shovel up my s—t.” Much less crudely, in a dining room on Wednesday at the House of Commons, the senior-most member of Parliament of Blair’s Labour Party, Tam Dalyell, professed his pro-American credentials, described his family’s American connections—and then let rip to NEWSWEEK about the thoughtlessness of Blair’s “cozying up” to Bush’s America.



Later in the afternoon, the House of Commons held its first emergency debate in nine years, over the Blair government’s decision to send a fighting force of at least 1,700 to Afghanistan next month. Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle said: “It is a very murky, messy picture that we are putting our troops into. Of course, the precedent for the situation we find ourselves in is Vietnam and of course [Prime Minister] Harold Wilson, under great American pressure, kept us out.”
For now, all this satire and divisiveness is a sideshow to the great weight of history and the common cause of antiterrorism that unites America and Britain. In the Guardian (the Observer’s Monday-Saturday sister newspaper) on Wednesday, the columnist Jonathan Freedland notes that a poll from the day before shows that 51 percent of those surveyed oppose British support for a U.S. assault on Iraq (with only 35 percent in favor). But, he adds, “glance next at one of those more general surveys which ask people to rank their favorite countries. Guess who comes top? The United States, by a country mile.” This, he says, is the enduring lesson for those who monitor the special relationship: Britons “are against America’s plans for Baghdad but pro-America—all at the same time. No problem.”
And yet for some of the most plugged-in monitors, it might be problem. Britain is a bellwether. No American ally has been more stalwart than Britain; France, Germany and the rest of Europe are much less dependable. Blair, due to meet with Bush again at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, next month, remains unwavering in his support for Washington. Precisely because of that and because of the historical closeness, Britain is for U.S. diplomats in Europe “the canary in the coal mine,” as one of them puts it. When the canary dies for lack of oxygen, he says, beware of trouble ahead. With the drumbeat of war against Iraq in the air, if Britain shows signs of distancing itself from its managing partner across the Atlantic, the rest of Europe is already a lost cause. In other words, says the diplomat (with an apology for mixing his metaphors), from Washington’s point of view, “Our goose is cooked.”

© 2002 Newsweek, Inc.