Blair in the spotlight

Blair is styled as an ambassador for the free world

By Louise Tillin, BBC world affairs analyst

Only a month ago Tony Blair was due to make one of the most 'difficult' speeches of his second term in office.

The TUC Conference was shaping up for a fight. Instead the events of 11 September, as Tony Blair has said, marked a "turning point in history".

Perhaps most fundamentally Tony Blair has also brought a very personal morality to the need to act against terror

They also marked a turning point in Tony Blair's career. It saved him from domestic wrangles over the private finance initiative and threw him into the international spotlight.

Domestically Tony Blair has assumed a markedly presidential role. Parliament has met only three times since 11 September, the cabinet too only three times and although a war cabinet has been assembled, it has not met every day.

In all but title Tony Blair, like the American President, is commander-in-chief of the British armed forces.

On the international stage he is the most visible European leader and is being received as a world leader around the globe.

Special relationship flourishes

Straight after the attacks Tony Blair confirmed that Britain would be standing "shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy" and the commencement of action against the Taleban was a very visible sign of just how close American and British shoulders are.

It is also a sign of how in the absence of the more obvious shared political and cultural outlook of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, the special relationship is still standing.

Mubarak in Egypt was Blair's last stop

Blair emphasised from the beginning that he did not see the attacks as "a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism".

Acting as an ambassador for the "free and democratic world" Tony Blair began the most ambitious coalition building tour of any leader in the world since 11 September.

In 40 hours he took in Berlin, Paris, New York and Washington. He has since visited Moscow, Islamabad and Delhi, Oman where British troops are stationed on practice, and Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Emissary role

In some quarters he has been described as an ambassador for America or George Bush's personal emissary, but certainly he sees his role in wider terms.

It was Tony Blair who first published some of the evidence identifying Osama Bin Laden as the key suspect in the 11 September attacks.

He was the first leader to talk about the need to build a "humanitarian coalition", "just as we have built a political and military coalition ... to deal with humanitarian crisis in that region".

In one sense Tony Blair's centrality to the current operation could be seen to offer a convenient aura of legitimacy to the US campaign.

Personal morality

But perhaps most fundamentally Tony Blair has also brought a very personal morality to the need to act against terror.

His speech to the Labour Party Conference talked of the need to combine the "power of community" with justice and of following the "principles that have served us so well at home - that power, wealth and opportunity must be in the hands of the many, not the few".

He spoke of a moral duty to act if a conflict such as Rwanda happened again today.

"Out of the shadow of this evil should emerge lasting good," he said.

Bush and Blair have formed a new relationship

For a prime minister whose summer holiday reading was the Koran, this international community emphatically contains all faiths including those he calls "the true followers of Islam".

Jack Straw has denied there is any division between the US and the UK over war aims.

Whether co-operation will hold up, if demands grow in the US to extend the scope of military action to other states considered to be harbouring terrorists, remains to be seen.

Furthermore it will be interesting to see how far Tony Blair will use his new relationship with George Bush to influence US positions on other issues important to the world community.

As the pieces of the "kaleidoscope ... settle again", will Tony Blair use his enhanced position to press for American re-engagement on Kyoto, missile defence or germ warfare?