James Wolcott: One City, One World, One America

One of the puzzling and perverse questions raised by the poodle relationship between Tony Blair and George Bush is what Blair gets out of it, and, by extension, what benefit Britain obtains by playing deputy sidekick to the Sheriff of Nazareth. Where's the payoff, the reward? Even a poodle ought to receive a doggy treat now and then. The loyalty has been entirely one-sided. Bush made it insultingly clear before the G8 summit that he wasn't going to do a major budge on global warming and African aid just because Blair was so staunch on Iraq. He said that he didn't believe in any quid pro quo and as for Iraq--"Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping the peace and winning the war on terror, as I did." His manner in that interview couldn't have been more matter-of-fact and dismissive, when he wasn't blinking up a storm.