George Bush and Tony Blair - Axis of feeble
THEY have been improbable soul-mates, the silver-tongued British barrister and the drawling Republican from Texas. But the partnership between Tony Blair and George Bush has shaped world events in the nearly five years since the attacks of September 11th. Over the past year, however, the debacle in Iraq and problems at home have turned both leaders from soaring hawks into the lamest of ducks. This week Mr Bush's popularity drooped to 31% in the polls; his party faces a beating and the possible loss of one or both houses of Congress in November's mid-term elections. In Britain meanwhile, much of the Labour Party, which Mr Blair reinvented and led through three consecutive election victories, wants to bundle its saviour into retirement and replace him with Gordon Brown.
Many of Mr Bush's other foreign allies, such as Spain's José María Aznar and Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, have lost their jobs. And none of these allies formed a bond as strong as the one with Mr Blair. When the time comes for Mr Bush to soldier on without his one foreign soul-mate and confidant, it may not be Britain's troops, intelligence advice or Security Council votes he will miss most but the psychological pattern of mutual encouragement: each man's reinforcement of the other's belief in the rightness of his gut convictions.
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