The state we're in

How has Tony Blair got himself into such an unlikely political nightmare? In the first term he declared soothingly that "the entire country is my core constituency". Now he faces Cabinet resignations, backbench revolts on an historic scale and civil unrest. On the international front, he once proclaimed that his "historic objective is to end Britain's ambiguous relationship with Europe". Now he is firmly on one side of a divided Europe, leading the taunts against the other side, cheered on by the Eurosceptic newspapers. More specifically, this seemingly cautious leader is preparing to go to war on a timetable largely determined by the US, having thrown the UN into frenzied disarray.

The case for the defence is put passionately by those who work closely with Mr Blair, and is shared by a significant section of his own party. They argue that he is acting with awesome courage in doing what he believes to be right. He is an heroic figure who is taking on all opposition because he recognises that Saddam has to be removed and that the US must remain part of the international community.

One Labour MP who sees him regularly put it to me more strongly. "After this, Tony will be able to lead in Europe and get the Middle East peace conference under way. In about a year's time, he will be trusted enough to take us into the euro." The narrative was so compelling I almost bought a bottle of champagne.

It would, though, take three or four bottles – consumed rapidly – to believe the current situation is an unequivocal triumph for the Prime Minister. Up to a point, the case for the defence is unquestionably correct. Mr Blair has consistently warned about Saddam long before 11 September. I believe him when he says that if President Bush had not embarked on this course he would now be urging him to do so. It is also the case that Blair has encouraged a dialogue between a unilateralist-inclined US and the rest of the international community.

But the problems begin with the nature of that dialogue. As I argued last week, it is clear that he committed British troops to a possible war against Iraq when he met President Bush a year ago. He said at the time that he believed passionately that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had to be dealt with. It is not in his nature, nor in line with his public statements, to whisper privately to Mr Bush: "You deal with them on your own. I am keeping out of this." British troops were lined up from the beginning.

Together, they have also said publicly they do not expect Saddam to comply voluntarily. In other words they did not expect him to dismantle his weapons without force. The most detailed example of this came in an interview that Mr Blair gave Andrew Marr of the BBC in Washington last month. The transcript is revealing. It is clear Mr Blair had no doubt that a war was unavoidable. As an unhelpful echo, Bush explicitly said then, and since, that he would go to war with or without the UN.

The early commitment to join the US in a military campaign, and public statements implying war was inevitable, have led to many of Mr Blair's related problems at the UN and at home. The leaders of dissenting countries at the UN are playing all sorts of games, but they are not daft. When Bush and Blair give such clear signals that they regard war as unavoidable the doubters have every right to be suspicious of their hyper-activity at the UN. The US and UK are seeking wider legitimacy for a war they have been planning for a year and want to start within days. From the beginning Bush and Blair have done little more than invite the UN to back military action. When countries decline to do so, British and US ministers have the chutzpah to attack them for letting down the UN.

The great tragedy is that this epic international divide comes down largely to the trivial matter of a few weeks. France and Russia say that their proposed lengthy extended deadline for the UN inspectors is up for negotiation. Their main, and entirely understandable, objection is to a new resolution that would mean war in a few days. If the Prime Minister could persuade President Bush to give Hans Blix and his inspectors a few more weeks the international community would have no choice but to unite. President Chirac would be in no position to proclaim, at the end of another decent interval, that he wanted Blix to spend even more time in the desert. Presumably, the Swede will start to yearn for Stockholm before very long. The world order has collapsed over a battle between an unreasonable veto and an unreasonable deadline.

Why has Mr Blair come down on the side of the unreasonable deadline? Partly, he is acting out of conviction and – in the short term – will be partially vindicated. This will be a one-sided war. But there are other reasons that explain why he has got himself into a situation in which he is trapped, where he has no choice but to be "bold". He is in the rare position of being a prime minister with no previous ministerial experience. At the start of May 1994 he was shadow home affairs spokesman. By the end of the month, after John Smith's death, he was a prime-minister-in-waiting. He handled this unprecedented shift in political status with such skill that no one noticed the join. But the fact that he and his administration spent 18 years in opposition is an under-rated factor in explaining quite a lot of what has happened since 1997. They exercise power without being able to draw on past experiences of governing.

Would Mr Blair have hemmed himself in quite so rigidly with a divided Republican administration had he been a foreign secretary in a previous Labour government? I doubt it. This is a government hindered still by Labour's capacity to lose elections for nearly two decades. At home the inexperience is rarely exposed because of the ineptitude of the political opposition. Wily operators in Washington and Paris are in an altogether different league from Iain Duncan Smith.

Mr Blair's remarkable record of reversing Labour's election-losing sequence is one of the reasons why he will still be Prime Minister when the war is over. Some Labour rebels are already rallying around after a few over-excited backbenchers foolishly raised the prospect of a leadership challenge. Even so, the relationship between the Prime Minister and Labour has changed permanently as a result of this crisis.

Mr Blair is pushing at the boundaries of how far a leader can move away from his party. There are illuminating echoes with the career of Dr David Owen, who led the SDP in the 1980s. They agree on many issues and are perceived in a similar light. In the 1980s commentators in the media hailed Dr Owen, proclaiming him as a titan, the only alternative prime minister. They were doing so without noticing that Dr Owen's party was disappearing from underneath him. Dr Owen was a titan without any visible means of support. He did not survive for very long.

Commentators are hailing the titanic Mr Blair now. Some of them are rubbing their hands with gleeful anticipation at the prospect of some meaty right-wing policies being implemented when the war is won. They forget that Britain has a party political system, not a presidential one. Mr Blair will be gone before the next election if he forgets that as well.