It was a good day for parliamentary democracy in Britain yesterday, as the House of Commons debated the Labour government's policy on Iraq and voted on it. Mr Tony Blair has survived the ordeal, albeit by putting his leadership on the line, but he has been warned that should the coming war be protracted or fail in its major objectives his political future is altogether at risk.
Mr Blair pledged to hold a debate before going to war, having reconciled himself to resignations from the government and rebellious votes by backbench members of his own party. Yesterday he delivered a riveting speech in justification of his policy to support the United States. He spelled out the threats involved in failing to take action against Iraq and underlined what is at stake for world politics at this critical juncture. He proposed a series of measures after the end of the war which could retrieve the political initiative for his effort to influence US policy. He refused to consider pulling back British troops from their commitment to action. If this was done, "who will celebrate and who will weep?" He thereby made the question of Iraq a matter of confidence in his government and leadership.
The scale of the opposition he encountered last night and last week from within his own party bears out these judgments of what is at stake. In another splendid speech the Leader of the Commons and former Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, explained why he decided to resign over the government's Iraq policy. He touched on all the neuralgic points that have accompanied Mr Blair's agonising foreign policy choices in the last few years. Mr Cook said he could nor support a war that has neither international agreement through the United Nations nor domestic support. The British people, he declared, do not doubt that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded he is a clear and present danger to Britain. They want inspectors to be given a further chance and they suspect the US is pushing Britain prematurely into a war "against the hostility of many of our traditional allies" and international bodies including NATO, the European Union and the UN Security Council. "To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse." He questioned whether Mr Blair's central ambition to bring Britain to the heart of Europe can now be achieved.
Yesterday's House of Commons debate largely reflected these alternative policy positions. Mr Blair insisted that the new threat to world order is "chaos" created by the conjunction of regional dictatorships and international terrorism. In the case of Iraq and al-Qaeda that connection is "loose but hardening There is now a possibility of the two coming together in a real and present danger." He justified pre-emptive action against such a potential threat, but did not offer compelling evidence that it already exists. He affirmed his view that the resolution of this crisis "will determine the pattern of international politics for the next generation." It will also determine the pattern of Britain's political leadership.