Blair: Waiting For U.S. Payback?

Prime Minister Tony Blair said the international community must make peace in the Middle East its highest priority, as he traveled to Washington Thursday for talks with U.S. President George W. Bush.

Blair has publicly declared that he is seeking a renewed U.S. commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has created what many see as an opportunity for fresh efforts.

"That goal of a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel is one that we must continue to work tirelessly to achieve," Blair said Thursday, reacting to Arafat's death.

"Peace in the Middle East must be the international community's highest priority. We will do whatever we can, working with the U.S. and the EU, to help the parties reach a fair and durable settlement."

Blair left London on Thursday aboard a chartered British Airways jet for two days of meetings, Mr. Bush's first with a foreign leader since his re-election last week.

Briefing reporters during the flight, Blair's official spokesman said one of Britain's goals was to revive the stalled "road map" plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

"It's important that we get the strategy right and then engage the players in such a way that they do not feel that we are imposing something on them, that they do not feel we are saying, 'Take it or leave it,'" he said.

Blair is Mr. Bush's closest overseas ally and loyally supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq, in the face of widespread opposition in European capitals and at home. Their friendship is unpopular among some lawmakers in the governing Labour Party and a vast section of British opinion. Many believe the prime minister doggedly follows Mr. Bush's lead without exerting any real influence.

With British general elections expected next year, and Labour members still querulous over the war, Blair needs to prove his close alliance with Mr. Bush bears fruit. Many British lawmakers now expect a payback from Mr. Bush in return for Blair's loyalty, in the form of a renewed commitment to the peace process.

Blair faces heavy criticism from some Members of Parliament over the decision to allow British troops to move to central Iraq to free up US forces for the attack. But Blair insists it was a military — not political — decision, and that the Iraqi interim prime minister supported the Falluja operation.

Regardless, anti-war protesters gathered in Parliament Square on Wednesday as Blair departed for the U.S. for two days of meetings.

Blair said Thursday that "the relationship between Britain and the U.S. is fantastically important."

"You know, I think there always is and always should be a situation in which the British prime minister and the American president get on well together. I regard it as part of my job," Blair said in an interview with GMTV, a morning news program.

Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the incarceration of detainees at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and what some regard as heavy-handed U.S. military tactics in Iraq, have contributed to the president's unpopularity. Lawmakers will watch closely for signs that Blair has shifted Bush on such issues during their talks.

But securing a commitment on the Middle East peace process would be the most obvious sign that Blair's voice is heard in Washington.

With Arafat now gone from the scene, Blair is likely to urge Bush to seize the opportunity of a change in Palestinian leadership. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview this week with the Financial Times that the United States would face that opening "aggressively."

Blair will also stress the importance of bolstering the Palestinian security and administrative apparatus, and insist that Israel's proposed withdrawal from Gaza must be a viewed as a first step toward Palestinian statehood.