Cover Story

A bittersweet birthday

18 March 2006

On 20 March, the Iraq conflict reaches its third anniversary. Con Coughlin defends the decision to invade, explores the impact of Blair on Bush’s second term — and reveals what Condoleezza Rice thinks of David Cameron

On a whole range of issues, from Kyoto to the Israel/Palestine road map, Blair is known to have strong views that are at odds with those of Bush, but has nevertheless failed to persuade the President to make any significant concessions.

Or so it would seem. But then if you look at the subtle changes in the dynamics of the transatlantic relationship that have taken place since Bush won re-election in 2004, the opposite argument could be made.

Certainly the approach taken by Bush II to key international security issues, such as the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme or the emergence of Hamas at the recent Palestinian elections, is very different from that of Bush I. In part this is because many of the more influential neocon ideologues — such as Wolfowitz — have now left the administration. The appointment of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State means that the administration’s foreign policy is now controlled by someone who is a presidential confidante, which could never be said of Colin Powell.

This new approach is best reflected in the way Bush II has allowed Britain, Germany and France — the EU3 — to make all the running on the Iran crisis. Nor have there been any recriminations when that process failed. Instead of hurling diplomatic brickbats, as often happened over Iraq, Washington has been at pains to stress the need for international consensus.

Similarly, there has been a subtle change in the approach of the American military in the way it conducts itself on peacekeeping operations. Whereas in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq war the attitude of American infantry units was shoot first, ask questions later, their operations now are more targeted at tackling clearly defined enemy groups, such as Abu Musab al-Zarkawi’s terror organisation in Iraq. ‘It seems the Americans have belatedly woken up to the fact that shooting everything in sight is not exactly the best way to make friends in a foreign land,’ a senior British military officer remarked to me recently.

But if the current Bush administration is more amenable to having a constructive dialogue with its allies on present security issues, that is not to say that it is yet willing to countenance criticism of its Iraq policy, as David Cameron discovered.