The poodle turns?

Tony Blair's critics in Britain and other EU countries have referred to him as "America's poodle" because of his down-the-line support for Bush's Iraq War. Blair may have expected to continue to maintain the British role as a bridge between the US and the European Union that he played effectively during the Clinton Administration.

But he apparently didn't realize how strong an anti-Europe inclination the new Republican Administration had. Now he has badly damaged his standing at home and even more badly damaged his reputation in Europe by his Iraq policy. I've wondered how the Bush team would react if somehow Blair found himself siding with his European partners against the Bush Administration on an important issue.

This report from the London Financial Times indicates that we may soon see. It says that Blair is leaning toward support a European Defense Force independent of NATO, which doesn't make his Republican friends in Washington happy.

The US has received mixed signals from London despite assurances from UK diplomats that Britain would seek to scupper such moves [toward an independent EU force].

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, raised the issue in a meeting with Britain's Geoff Hoon at the informal gathering of Nato defence ministers last week in Colorado. Condoleezza Rice, White House national security adviser, has telephoned Sir Nigel Scheinwald, Mr Blair's chief foreign policy aide, to express her concern.

"There is no sense of crisis between London and Washington over this," said a senior Bush administration official. "But there is a sense of real confusion and real concern. For the US, the issue of Nato's primacy in Europe is of real importance to us. We have made that clear."

US officials last week expressed consternation to several European allies that the Franco- German proposal for a separate EU military command and planning structure came in April, months after the signing of the "Berlin Plus" agreement requiring the EU to work within Nato.

After all Blair has done for Bush on the Iraq War, you might think that Bush officials would be more cautious about publicly calling him to heel this way as though he were, well, their poodle.

Tags: iraq war, tony blair