Tony's Cunning Plan

The Guardian's Patrick Wintour cuts a dynamic figure in today's edition. Under the thrusting headline, "Prime minister seizes chance for progress on Palestinian crisis", he deftly summarises the Downing Street press release in a forty-word leading paragraph before hustling together a further 444 words of what some people said yesterday and various extracts from the past few months. The press release part (that is, the story's news content) is as follows: Tony plans to take advantage of the Iraq Study Group's report in order to use his famous influence on George W Bush and "press [him] to be more positive towards the formation of a national unity government in Palestine involving Hamas". Since Hamas were inconsiderate enough to get themselves properly elected by, of all things, the Palestinian people, Bush has no interest whatever in dealing with them; but Tony will press him anyway.

Just what sort of pressure Tony will bring to bear is a matter of speculation, but some indication might be had from the joint response to the Iraq Study Group report. Bush said the ISG's recommendations were "worthy of serious recommendation", which is itself an endorsement meaningless enough to be worthy of the Vicar himself. Bush said that he and Tony would "stand together and defeat the extremists and radicals", and Tony agreed with him. Bush said that the Iraq debacle was part of a wider crusade by the forces of reasonability against extremists, and Tony agreed with him. Bush said he thought that Mission Accomplished in Iraq could be accomplished one more time for glory, and Tony agreed with him. Tony thanked Bush for his "clarity of vision" and said that the Iraq mission could and should be succeeded in. It is possible that Bush agreed with him.

This, of course, is Tony at his best, seizing chances for progress wherever they may be. It is precisely because the press conference looks like an episode of One Pan and his Dog that Patrick Wintour and his ilk are assured that Tony is "struggling to win Washington's support for an international peace conference to settle the Palestinian issue, and hopes the Iraq Study Group report published yesterday will give him his last chance to press the case". The frolicking, the gambolling, the chronic ankle-humping are all part of Tony's cunning Whole Middle East Plan. If Bush doesn't do as he is pressed to do, then mark my words, the consequences could be serious. Of course Tony will not withdraw British troops from Iraq (after all, the Iraqi government hasn't been told by Washington to ask him to) or refuse to continue acting as a base for part of the US nuclear arsenal and/or a stopover for arms shipments to the Righteous State; but he'll do something all right, even if it's just looking soulful and sticking his nose in master's crotch until the world is set to rights.