TIME Magazine | Blair's Seven Days In Hell

	A Week in Hell At the precipice of war, facing mutiny at home, Tony Blair stays cool

	Taking a Stand on Stage This season there's no avoiding the theater of war

	Don't Oust Saddam U.S. diplomat warns his former bosses

	Room to Turn? Turkey's parliament may still allow in U.S. troops

	Conflicted George Bush's European allies swim against antiwar opinion

	Family Feud France urges new Europeans to toe the old line

	French Resistance Chirac says non to U.S. plans for a war to disarm Iraq


War Torn The new gulf between European. leaders and their people 6 Reasons America's allies want Bush to slow down the war machine Mad at America Can the Transatlatic alliance survive? Collision Course Germany attacks the U.S. line on Iraq Don't Mention the War Josef Joffe on Schröder's flirtation with the pacifist lobby Yankee Stay Home! The U.S. gears up for war on Iraq, but Europeans may not follow




	E-mail your letter to the editor

Why do Europeans attack President Bush's line on war with Iraq?

	They doubt Saddam is a danger
	They don't want Iraqis to die
	They fear war may spread
	They think war will hit efforts to beat terror
	They suspect Bush's motives
	They've forgotten the lesson of history
	They're jealous of America

NOTE: This is an unscientific, informal survey for the interest and enjoyment of TIME.com users and may not be indicative of popular opinion.


Seven Days In Hell

	At the precipice of war, facing mutiny at home, Tony Blair stays cool and doesn't crack. A character study
	By JAMES GEARY

ALASTAIR GRANT/PA
NO WIN SITUATION: As his torturous week drew to a close, Tony Blair still faced the prospect of war without U.N. backing

For Tony Blair, it was the ultimate week from hell. The British Prime Minister was already looking pretty scuffed up when it started, with a member of his own cabinet calling his Iraq policy "extraordinarily reckless" and threatening to resign if Blair went to war without a second U.N. resolution. Things got worse as France vowed to veto any such resolution, "whatever the circumstances" — and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seemed to question Blair's resolve to take part in military action. Would Blair back down? By mid-week, there was open talk of regime change in London if he didn't.

But somehow Blair came out of the week in better shape than he went into it. If he wasn't exactly in control, at least he looked more commanding and confident. He easily parried criticism in Parliament; vowed to "hold firm to the course we have set out," with or without the U.N.; cannily attacked the French for making war more likely; and seized on George W. Bush's promise of a "road map" to Israeli-Palestinian peace.


	"What is at stake ... is whether the international community is prepared to back up the clear instruction it gave to Saddam." — TONY BLAIR

Bush's Middle East announcement, which promises to find a path to security for Israel and a state for the Palestinians by 2005, was also meant to find a path to security for the embattled Blair. The Prime Minister has consistently argued that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is as important as Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, so he immediately hailed Bush for accepting "the obligation of even-handedness" in the Middle East.

Others suspected that the initiative was just a desperate bid to prop up Blair's position at home. Though he may not get his second resolution, progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, if it comes, would certainly help mute domestic criticism of the Prime Minister.

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