Blair is back...

Blair was lucky; he didn't need to invent an enemy. His policies ensured that they flourished in his backyard, writes Binay Kumar.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

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- Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist and writer)

Tony Blair was lucky; he didn't need to invent an enemy. His policies ensured that they flourished in his backyard.

Never mind the insecurities the London bombers of 7th July and the failed attempt two weeks later have brought to the public and the damage it is doing to race relations in a self-proclaimed Mecca of multiculturalism. Ignore also for a moment that Blair doggedly refuses to concede even now any connection between Iraq and the fanning of misplaced religious dogmas at home and abroad.

What you need not ignore, however, is that, at least in the short run, his political fortunes have only been shored-up by harping on the theme of a global conspiracy of terror against the western world, at the centre of which he stands unfazed and hand-in-hand (or hand-in-glove, as your preference may be) with Bush.

Despite winning a historic third term for the Labor Party in the May 5 general elections, Blair had emerged from the exercise deeply bruised and battered. Though he had managed to win 356 seats in the 646-seat House of Commons, his majority was much reduced and his share of the vote sharply curtailed. Instead of being given the credit for fashioning yet another historic victory for his party, much speculation in the media since then had centered on the timing of his imminent exit and handing of reins to Gordon Brown, his highly respected finance minister.

The discussions over his likely departure from Downing Street were so overwhelming that it became focused on the timing and not on the case for it, as if his fate had already been sealed. It reached a crescendo when writing in The New York Review of Books, Professor Alan Ryan of Oxford University announced with much finality that "he could resign at any moment."

The disenchantment with Blair was not limited to Britain. His love and longing for America notwithstanding, the acerbic pen of Greg Palast, a former columnist for Britain's Guardian newspapers, went so far as to declare rather cynically, on the eve of the elections, "Blair doesn't want to be Prime Minister. He wants to be governor in London of America's 51st state".

But his hope was soon getting the better of his mirth. Palast was content to live with a victorious outcome for Blair, by then a forgone conclusion, because, in the end, he sincerely nurtured the rapidly gaining belief like so many others across Britain, that sooner rather than later Blair will be forced to abdicate in favour of Brown.

Palast went one up on Professor Ryan. He valiantly predicted, "Blair will hold onto office - for now - due only to a sly campaign that relied on the public's accepting on faith that, sooner rather than later after Thursday's vote, Blair will do the honorable thing and end his own political life, leaving the British-to-the-bone Brown to inherit the parliamentary throne. Tony's political corpse can then be mailed to Texas - wrapped in an American flag."

Today there are many like Ryan and Palast who stand humbled gazing at the political landscape in Britain which seems to have changed beyond recognition in a bare three month interregnum since the May elections. Post July 7, the besmirching of Blair's record in office, a favorite pastime with political satirists and scheming backbenchers, is drowned under a growing admiration of robust demonstrations of leadership on his part.

The defining moment of Blair's comeback leadership came in the wake of the London bombings. In his most memorable remarks, he declared: "When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people or weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm."

The measure of all-round political adulation of Blair's current political standing can be gauged in the comments made by, of all the newspapers, The Sunday Telegraph, known for its dislike of the Prime Minister, which unabashedly conceded that, "in the wake of the attacks, Britain had the Prime Minister it needed."

For all his foibles and fumblings on Iraq, Tony Blair is the poster boy of political paradoxes: whereas Mrs Thatcher's lasting legacy in British history is delivering a deathblow to socialism, Blair would surely be remembered for discrediting conservative politics in Britain, a fact that may not be easy to swallow for many of his American friends and admirers.

A comment made almost four years ago to the day rings true in today's context. Writing in the London Times in September of 2001, Mary Ann Sieghart had this to say about the British Prime Minister: "he seems to be at his boldest when the outcome is most dangerous, most in doubt and most outside his power to direct. Some politicians rise to the challenge of war, and others shrink from it". Blair has boldly risen to the challenge and so has his stature.

I had opened today's column with a quotation and I will sum it up with another, attributed to Lord Maitreya: "Rarely does man see beforehand the consequences of his actions, and rare it is, indeed, even if he does, that he allows such knowledge to inhibit his activity. The pull of desire is so strong that, for most, its demands are all-compelling."