THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP:

Latest Moves by President Pave the Way for a War (Robin Wright, March 15, 2003, LA Times)

President Bush's two bold steps Friday -- announcing a last-ditch summit with Britain and Spain and pledging to soon release the "road map" for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement -- in effect signal the breakdown of diplomacy on Iraq, U.S. officials and analysts say.

The summit, in the remote Azores islands, is expected to pave the way for war, because the three leaders have now concluded that they almost certainly will not be able to win sufficient backing for a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, according to U.N. and U.S. officials. [...]

[T]he bigger clue to the status of U.S. diplomatic efforts, six months after Bush's speech appealing for U.N. action to disarm Iraq, was his Rose Garden pledge Friday to jump-start peace efforts on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The administration insisted that its abrupt action was not connected to Iraq but was instead produced by the confluence of three factors: Israel has formed a new government after January elections. The Palestinian Authority is soon to put in place a new prime minister, weakening the autocratic control of Yasser Arafat. And the so-called quartet -- the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia -- has in place a road map for peace.

Yet both Republicans and Democrats, Israelis and Arabs greeted the move with cynicism. It is widely seen as a kind of diplomatic quid pro quo that will make it easier for Britain and Spain to stay on board for war by addressing a key concern of both governments and their publics. [...]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar have badly needed a U.S. commitment to act on the other, older Middle East conflict before they take the last step on Iraq. But so do Arab allies and others among the two dozen nations that administration sources claim are willing to play some role in supporting a U.S.-led war to oust Hussein. [...]

But some experts were skeptical about the administration's sincerity.

"I'm not convinced the president does believe this is the right moment to increase momentum behind a new Palestinian state. Behind closed doors, there are also some in this administration who would like to take the road map and the commitment to a Palestinian state off the table," [Ellen Laipson, former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council and now president of the Henry L. Stimson Center] said.

You often read in profiles of George W. Bush's extraordinary loyalty to friends and allies, but we're unaware of any other time in great power history when a leader has been so deferential to the internal political needs of a fellow head of state, especially not one of the opposite political party (broadly speaking). The delay in beginning the war, the search for a UN resolution that explicitly authorizes war, and this announcement of plans for a Middle East road map are all of them gracious and unnecessary motions that George Bush has engaged in solely for the purpose of aiding Tony Blair's personal political fortunes. That's remarkable. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 15, 2003 6:00 AM