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US press: King Tony's call to arms

He is the man who arrived for Nato's summit in Washington a day early, whisking down Pennsylvania Avenue for talks with the President - and the fact did not go unmissed by the US Press.

While Kosovo overshadowed the alliance's 50th birthday party, the US press saw just one of the 19 leaders taking centre-stage.

Tony Blair was not so much the new rooster in the coup but the new hawk in town.

The UK's Prime Minister has been transformed by the Kosovo crisis into the man who many consider to be taking the most militant line.

He has no hesitation in describing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic as a dictator - and Mr Blair's media blitz of the US left eyebrows raised in the editorial offices of both America's and the UK's leading newspapers.

The New York Times commented that some diplomats sarcastically dubbed the Prime Minister "King Tony", while other newspapers said Mr Blair was instrumental in holding together a wobbly Nato alliance.

Unlike some of his European counterparts, Mr Blair gladly appeared on America's key opinion-forming TV shows - including Larry King Live and Meet the Press.

The Tony principle

Mr Blair started his trip as he meant to go on: by jumping straight into the debate on the future role of Nato.

Speaking in Chicago, Mr Blair called for a new form of justified international intervention in foreign conflicts, based on the premise that military action on sovereign soil is justified when the risk of genocide is so great it cannot morally be ignored.

Mr Blair was variously accused of "sabre-rattling" and proclaimed the "rhetorical leader of Nato". Most of the comments came from unnamed European diplomats.

But in another tough speech, Mr Blair said that reversing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo would be the "best memorial" to Nato's 50th anniversary.

Other commentators took Mr Blair's no-nonsense attempt to stiffen American resolve as a blatant move to align himself with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - a politician simultaneously praised and criticised as the driving force behind US Kosovo policy.

Senior pro-intervention Republicans, reportedly led by presidential hopeful John McCain, wasted no time in falling in with Mr Blair.

Senator Jesse Helms described Mr Blair as the "most eloquent leader in the Western world".

Others were less complimentary.

'Mouse that roared'

Pat Buchanan, a presidential candidate on the Republican right, gave short shrift to the Prime Minister's media offensive.

"Tony Blair is the mouse that roared," he announced.

"It isn't going to be British troops humping up the road to Belgrade."

The Los Angeles Times named Mr Blair the most prominent hawk in the alliance and said that London and Washington were "papering over" a dispute caused by Mr Clinton's fear of committing US troops.

In a story headlined "Blair's way with words enlivens a call to arms", the New York Times observed that the White House had denied being upstaged.

"Clinton's aides said that he was thankful that the British Prime Minister's omnipresence was helping persuade the American public that the US is not alone in the war," the newspaper reported.

Other European leaders were described as watching the spectacle of the Blair machine from "a discreet distance".

The Washington Post said "top US officials" had commented that London and Washington were not singing from the same hymn sheet.

"Senior British officials kept raising publicly the prospect that ground troops might be needed," the newspaper wrote, "precisely the message Clinton did not want dominating the three-day Nato summit."

Talk show blitz

Perhaps crucially, Mr Blair launched his media blitz knowing that domestically he did not face the same political problems as Mr Clinton.

France's Le Monde has remarked that Mr Blair is having "a good war" while the UK's Guardian newspaper quoted an unnamed White House aide as describing the PM as "Clinton without any of the political or personal problems".

Speaking on the Larry King Live show on CNN, Mr Blair's robust comments appeared to make that very clear.

"We are going to continue this campaign," he said. "We do have a very serious conflict with a dictator that is pursuing policies contrary to every single civilised decency."

It is these kinds of comments which have led to comparisons with another British wartime leader.

A recent cover of the satirical UK news magazine Private Eye did not go unmissed by the US media.

"It's Winstony Blair," said the cover.

"Never in the field of human conflict have so many airplanes dropped so few bombs on so few targets."

Perhaps not the image one of the most media-wise leaders of modern times wants to portray.

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Papers see Blair as Nato hawk (23 Apr 99 | UK)

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