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March 5, 2003, 8:30 a.m. What a Leader! Blair’s British backing. By Iain Murray

merican news reporters regularly point out these days that British Prime Minister Tony Blair does not have the support of his country in his firm stance on Iraq. Shepard Smith, for instance, regularly tells Fox News viewers that 90 percent of Britons disapprove of the prime minister's position. On the one hand, this does suggest that Mr. Blair is showing real leadership in his unambiguous condemnation of Iraq's behavior. On the other, it suggests that he is unresponsive to the demands of his people. Yet a closer look at the polls suggests that Mr. Blair's stance is more popular than the headline writers would have us believe. (A poll released today by the Sun is far from the first indication.)

It is, for instance, going too far to say that the British public is opposed to war under any circumstances. Most polls indicate that Tony Blair would enjoy, at the very least, majority support for committing British troops if the U.N. backed military action. A Channel 4 News poll, for example, found only 16 percent of the population opposed military action that had U.N. backing. Many have argued that this shows that the British people are committed to the international structures they helped set up after World War II, and that they view any action outside of those structures as dangerous.

Yet this interpretation is not supported by the polls. That same Channel 4 survey found that 62 percent supported military action "if most members of the UN Security Council back the use of force, but one or two countries use their veto to block UN action." In other words, U.N. approval in itself is not required and the British are quite happy to see action without U.N. approval, so long as that action enjoys broad international support. Indeed, they are even happy to see such action take place in the face of strong opposition from such powerful countries as Russia, France, or China.

So the British are not repelled by the idea of war without U.N. backing. Instead, the reluctance to support the prime minister probably reflects the widespread opinion in the U.K that Britain and America are acting unreasonably on this matter, instead of being supported by countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world. A simple majority vote in the U.N in favor of the joint British-American resolution recently tabled should be enough to shift support firmly behind Mr. Blair. That would then suggest to the British people that it is countries that are willing to exercise their vetoes that are the unreasonable ones.

After all, opinion polls show that the British do consider Saddam dangerous. The BBC poll that found only 10 percent support for action without UN support also found majorities agreeing that there are links between Saddam and al Qaeda, and that 9/11 showed the dangers of waiting till it was too late to take action. A poll by the organization YouGov found that about 70 percent believe Saddam has chemical and biological weapons and that he is actively trying to develop nuclear arms (that same poll found only 25 percent agreeing that there is no justification for the U.N. taking military action now).

A later YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph newspaper published on 19 February found that almost three quarters of the British public feels that Saddam is just playing for time and has no intention of disarming. Two thirds agree that the current military buildup is justified. Yet a majority still feel that the weapons inspectors should be given time to disarm Saddam peacefully, thereby demonstrating considerable public confusion about just what the inspectors are able to do.

So it seems that the current state of British public opinion is that they believe war is likely, because of Saddam's intransigence, and will support even non-U.N.-sanctioned action if enough nations vote for it. This is a far cry from the situation on Continental Europe, where much of the popular feeling appears to be based primarily on populism and anti-Americanism. Nor is there the undercurrent of anti-Semitism that poisons too much of continental Europe's approach to the Middle East and America (in fact, a recent international poll organized by the Anti-Defamation League suggested Britain is less anti-Semitic than even the U.S.A.

Tony Blair's leadership, therefore, is perhaps even more inspired than has been suggested. It may be that he is paying more attention to the undercurrents of popular feeling than his detractors. He has also probably noticed that the strongest pro-war feelings seem to come from the working class, who make up the traditional base of his party's support. If the Anglo-American alliance can get those few additional votes for military action they need to foil French, German, and Russian intransigence, the British people will stand alongside the American people once again.

— Iain Murray, a British writer living in Alexandria, Va., is secretary of the Anglosphere Institute, a new organization dedicated to promoting the links between English-speaking nations.