Shoulder to shoulder: Tony Blair and President Bush in the Azores.
Posted on 03/16/2003 4:00:45 PM PST by MadIvan
Shoulder to shoulder: Tony Blair and President Bush in the Azores. |
Along with José-María Aznar of Spain, the three war leaders met on the Portuguese island of Terceira in the Azores; they talked, briefly, spoke of last-ditch diplomacy, and warned Saddam once again, but it was clear that conflict may be only hours away.
“We are in the final stages,” said Blair. “Now is the time when we have to decide.” His demeanour, however, suggested a decision has been made.
Where Blair was resolved, Bush was openly angry at the French veto threat, his impatience brittle and brisk. “France showed their cards. They said they were gonna veto.” Then he issued what sounded like a threat. “We’re gonna take an assessment tomorrow to determine what that card meant.”
The Azores, whose very name derives from the Portuguese for hawk, could hardly have been more symbolically appropriate for what was in effect a war summit: midway between Europe and America, the Azores mark the collision point of three tectonic plates, and although the three leaders still spoke of diplomacy, the plates have shifted too far to prevent the looming earthquake in Iraq.
The speed of the summit, the punctuality with which the leaders reappeared to make their statements, showed that the talking, not only in the UN but between the allies, is almost over. “Tomorrow is the day that will determine whether diplomacy can work,” the President said. But already he has given up the conditional tense when talking of what will follow in Iraq after military action.
Behind the leaders hung an impressive row of flags, but each national flag was represented three times, somehow reinforcing the smallness of the coalition against Saddam. When the statements were over, after a brief grin at Blair, the President left the conference room at something close to a jog.
Before their summit the three, along with their host, the Portuguese Prime Minister Durão Barroso, posed for photographs, Blair’s smile flickering on and off like a faulty bulb. On the far side of the airfield a line of US surveillance planes were silhouetted against the sky, waiting for the order to head to Iraq. In the waters off the Lajes military base, a warship patrolled meaningfully.
“The world comes to Terceira” declared the Azores newspaper, boldly reproducing a photograph of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon during the summit held here with Georges Pompidou in 1971. “To Snr Alberto Lopes, With best wishes, Richard Nixon.” Somehow the sight of Nixon at the height of the Vietnam War was not reassuring.
Sixteen hundred miles from Britain, 2,300 from the US, Terceira island felt like the end of the earth — as once it was. When Columbus arrived here on his way home, claiming to have discovered a new world, the Azorean settlers assumed he must be insane and locked up the crew, releasing them only when Columbus threatened to raid the town.
Tomorrow Britain and the US head into uncharted waters. “We have come to the point of decision,” said Blair, jaw set, eyes beadier then ever.
With the empty horizon stretching in every direction, Blair’s granite determination was reminiscent of the last last stand of another Englishman, Sir Richard Grenville, who battled the Spanish fleet off the Azores in 1591. Surrounded and outgunned, Grenville and his 153 men refused to lower the flag on The Revenge until almost all, including the captain, had perished. Tennyson immortalised the disaster:
“And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and fifty-three.”
As Blair’s plane took off to return home to a divided country and probable war, the Azores, like the talk of peace, slowly disappeared into an uncertain sunset.
Regards, Ivan
Prayer for the troops.....
This history was surely in the minds of their leaders as they stand up once again against attempted French hegemony over the European continent.
Nice writing. Makes this war seem as cosmic as it truly is. I wonder, however, whether those techtonic plates are real as well as symbolic.
The photo is marvelous! Bush and Blair energize and strengthen each other.
We really should create a list of UK and Spanish products to buy to send out with the list of Frahnsh and German products to boycott.
That's one way to read it. Another is to observe that there are very few nations with both a clue and the will to respond...
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