Bush-Blair team unshakeable as ever

By Richard Allen Greene
BBC News, Washington

Anyone hoping that George W Bush's good friend Tony Blair would use his pull with the president to get the United States to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon will have been disappointed by their joint appearance at the White House on Friday.

Both leaders were offered the chance to call for the fighting to end without precondition, and both batted it away in favour of what they would call the bigger picture.

This is a "chance for broader change in the region", Mr Bush said.

The world needed "a framework that allows us to stabilise the situation for the medium and longer-term," Mr Blair chimed in.

They called for a UN-backed force to intervene in southern Lebanon, but without some stability on the ground - and with no indication whatsoever of what countries might supply troops - it would be rash to think blue helmets will arrive to put a lid on the violence any time soon.

Singing in harmony

The two men had clearly spent their private meeting making sure they would sing from the same hymn sheet in front of the cameras.

No dispute on how to move forward in the Middle East.

Mrs Beckett questioned the US transport flights to Israel

No word at the press conference about US flights stopping over in Britain en route to Israel to deliver weapons - a subject Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett complained about earlier in the week.

And only a curtain-raising joke from the president about the conversation with the prime minister which was caught on tape without their knowledge 10 days ago.

So, as has happened so many times before, "Britain and America ... remain strong allies, fighting shoulder to shoulder," as Mr Blair said in Washington.

In fact, it was difficult to avoid a sense of deja vu as the two men stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the world's press.

Trawl through the BBC News website's archives, and you will find an article about Mr Blair flying in to the US to meet Mr Bush.

They had been expected to discuss Iraq, but a flare-up of violence between Israel and its neighbours was distracting them.

Mr Blair told reporters travelling with him that he and Mr Bush would "obviously be looking at ideas that can lead to a ceasefire".

That article was written more than four years ago, in April 2002.

Mutual defence

Since then, our archives chronicle a dispute over the role of the late Yasser Arafat, which we, perhaps naively and certainly prematurely, thought might be a "row too far".

But within months, Mr Bush and Mr Blair were "talking tough on Iraq" together.

Mr Blair defended a presidential visit to the UK in 2003, and a year later, Mr Bush praised the "visionary" prime minister - who was the first foreign leader to visit the US after Mr Bush's re-election.

There have certainly been hiccups in the "special relationship" over the years.

The UK press had a collective chuckle over the open-mike conversation at the G8 summit that opened when the president greeted the prime minister with: "Yo, Blair."

Mr Blair seemed eager to visit the Middle East then, but Mr Bush was dismissive.

The curtain came down on that unguarded conversation when Mr Blair noticed the microphone on the table, tapped it to see if it was on, then switched it off.

On Friday Mr Bush opened their joint press conference by thanking Tony Blair for "letting me know when the microphone is on".

And when he then tapped his own microphone, it was almost as if the conversation had resumed exactly where they left off 10 days ago - perhaps with some disagreements in private, but in public, shoulder to shoulder, through thick and thin, year after year after year.