In Blair Bush trusts?

By Justin Webb BBC correspondent, Washington

Continuing unrest in Iraq is putting an enormous strain on the US presidency, for both the man and his administration.

Bush and Blair have maintained a united front

Could it be that President Bush needs support from the UK now more than ever?

The commonly-held European view of President Bush - let's not mince our words here - is one approaching pity.

Put his policies to one side and concentrate for a moment on the man.

He is regarded as amiable and stupid. But, as a former official said some time ago, the truth is that he is neither.

He is not a stupid man. His mind does not meander as uncertainly through the world as his language, but neither is he the jolly cowboy that his image-makers would have us smile at.

Appearing this week before reporters, he kicked off in the usual linguistically inept fashion.

"Let me ask you a couple of questions," he said.

Actually, I think he meant: "Why don't you ask me a couple of questions?"

Once that was sorted out, the man from the Associated Press led the way.

President Bush was unusually tetchy with reporters

"Sir" he began, and then started his question.

"Who are you talking to?" barged in the President.

"Oh sorry, Mr President," the reporter corrected himself.

The cowboy stands on ceremony, at least when he wants to.

Later in the same session, another reporter referred to President Bush's expected testimony to the commission investigating the attacks of 11 September.

"I would call it a meeting" the President snapped.

In other words, presidents do not suffer the indignity of testifying, however many folk have died.

Fortune

Could this really be the same man, I wondered, as the one I had watched flanked by pom-pom girls and trumpeters in the gentle heat of an Alabama evening in 2002?

The one who had talked about how he would love to have stayed longer but he had to get back to the ranch, where Laura was sweeping the porch because, "we have got the president of China coming to stay".

How the crowd giggled and cooed, one of their own, a man who likes nothing better than donning a pair of Wranglers and clearing scrub, now hobnobbing - just a touch uneasily - with world leaders.

More Americans have been questioning whether the war they were told was a war of liberation, had really been worth it

What is the difference between now and then?

Well, a big difference is in the political fortunes of the president.

Back on that late summer evening President Bush was riding high.

Only a year after the 9/11 attacks, he was popular, and his party was cruising to success in the mid-term elections.

Backfoot

Now the president is in trouble.

His tetchy display in front of reporters this week came only minutes after he had met the family of a US soldier killed in Iraq.

As the week went on, more soldiers died, and more Americans have been questioning whether the war they were told was a war of liberation, had really been worth it.

Americans are not, at heart, imperialists.

I am talking here not about Washington bigwigs - the practitioners of geo-politics - who have, of course, on many occasions dabbled in the manifest destiny of unsuspecting foreigners, particularly during the Cold War.

No, I'm talking about café owners in Boise, Idaho, or shopkeepers in Texas, or retired folk in Buena Vista, Georgia.

They do not care for foreign wars.

They want America to be mighty. They believe America to be specially blessed by God.

They cannot imagine why anyone would dislike America or not want to be like Americans, but, at the end of the day, if foreigners want to get on with their lives, this nation's self view is that it does not get in the way.

Uncertainty

That is the problem in Iraq. America can take the casualties. It hurts of course, but this is a big nation and all those who go to Iraq are volunteers.

The problem is the cause. Is this a war of liberation or is it not?

History of US/UK relations

Do the recently liberated Iraqis look as if they enjoyed the process? Do they look grateful?

At the moment, they do not. The images on the television screens seem to suggest, not just that something has gone wrong, but that the whole business might have been misconceived.

If the images recede and peace breaks out, then the president's mood might improve and the voters might shrug their shoulders and give the boss the benefit of the doubt.

He meant well and we had better back him.

But if the violence continues, Mr Bush is in trouble, and his recent behaviour seems to suggest he knows it.

No wonder he has called in the "Big Gun", the really heavy hitter of the American popularity stakes.

This is the man who can make all Americans swoon and whose endorsement - even if it is understood rather than overt - could well be enough to swing the campaign.

Yes, Tony Blair arrives on Friday.

For this White House, not a moment too soon.

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From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 10 April, 2004 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.