His Finest Hour -- for How Long?: The shaky world of Tony Blair.

Back in the unlamented 1960s in Britain, in the sour political atmosphere following the failed 1967 devaluation of the pound, a joke spread rapidly through the governing classes at the expense of the reformist Labour prime minister of the day. It ran simply: "There are two things I dislike about Harold Wilson. His face."

Wilson, who was a very kind and honorable man in his personal life, had earned a reputation for duplicity because of a series of U-turns he had executed on everything from the exchange rate of sterling to Britain's membership in the European Economic Community. It led to his gradual political emasculation because he became so distrusted that he was unable to keep together the coalitions needed to push through the moderate pre- Thatcher labor-union reforms he favored. And his name became a byword for dishonesty, cynicism, and what was not then called spin.

It will strike most Americans as absurd to compare the current reformist Labour prime minister, Tony Blair, to this discredited contortionist. American conservatives in particular have fallen half in love with Blair for his strong support of the U.S. in the current Iraq crisis. David Brooks of The Weekly Standard has talked of his seriousness and resolve. Andrew Sullivan on his website has more or less endorsed Blair for reelection over the hapless Tories (whose weakness on the war he exaggerates -- they voted overwhelmingly for intervention in comparison to Labour's 2-1 split). And Christopher Caldwell, writing in The (London) Spectator, argued that Blair's steadfastness had made Britain the first European nation to regain world-power status.

All these compliments, moreover, are entirely deserved. Blair has staked out a clear argument in favor of disarming Saddam Hussein by force. He has faced down both internal Labour rebellion and substantial public discontent on the issue. He has confronted anti-Americanism head-on and destroyed its threadbare justifications. And he has done all these things by tackling -- and demolishing -- every one of the arguments that his critics have leveled against him. This is leadership of a high order, and it pays off. We are fortunate to have such an ally at our side. What, then, justifies any comparison of Blair to Wilson? And if such a justification exists, what lessons does it contain?

Blair's growing unpopularity in Britain is only marginally related to his support of an Iraq invasion. Indeed, his brave stand on the war would attract more respect at home were it not undermined in advance by his domestic political failures. His principal failure can be simply stated: He was elected on a platform of improving public services without raising taxes; instead he has raised taxes without improving public services. Among the results are massive traffic congestion, long hospital waiting lists, perpetual railroad delays, a growing pension crisis, and mounting tax bills.

These failures of policy themselves stem from two political causes -- Blair's unfinished reform of his own party, and his commitment to European integration. "New Labour" and the "Third Way" were interesting theoretical inventions, but they were never translated into practical politics. Almost the only major innovations actually brought into law were the botched (and still unfinished) reform of the House of Lords and the establishment of mini-parliaments in Scotland and Wales. These have achieved very little except to add another layer of government to already over-governed places. In addition, Blair's signing of the European social charter (which the Tories had opted out of) has ensured that an avalanche of labor regulations from Brussels will overwhelm the deregulated British labor market that is Britain's main competitive advantage. On top of the "stealth taxes" and high deficit spending introduced by Blair's Old Labour rival, finance minister Gordon Brown, these regulations are slowly recreating the over- taxed, over-regulated British economy of the 1970s.

Until very recently, these failures were brilliantly obscured by media management. No government has been more attentive to opinion polls, focus groups, flattery of friendly journalists (and exclusion of unfriendly ones), and all the other arts of public relations. Time and again Blair's ministers would say what Middle England wanted to hear while pursuing policies -- on asylum, for instance -- that bore no relation to their words. But public awareness of this relentless opinion management now hobbles Blair. Many voters no longer trust him and discount whatever New Labour says as spin. Like Wilson, he has squandered the chance of real reform to achieve popularity -- and has ended up with neither.

Blair himself now realizes all this. Indeed, the thought plainly haunts him that if he were to be knocked down by the proverbial London bus today, he would go down in history as an entirely inconsequential prime minister. Hence the sudden rush of political courage -- defying his own party not only on Iraq but also on domestic political issues, such as allowing private hospitals within the socialized National Health Service. He wants to redeem himself before it is too late. He believes he is doing the right thing on Iraq; he calculates that he will be on the winning side; and he intends to use the prestige generated by victory to push ahead with the reform program he has shunned nervously until now.

Should that not endear him to the Bush administration and American conservatives? In general it should -- and it does. But two important caveats are in order. In the first place, Blair's support for an invasion of Iraq is rooted in his high-minded liberal-interventionist belief in the efficacy of international organizations such as the U.N., the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto accords, etc. He will seek to exploit any Anglo- American victory to elevate the standing of such bodies, not as a tactical maneuver, but as a building block of a new transnational order hostile to national sovereignty, including U.S. sovereignty. Does America really want to give the U.N. teeth? More important, Blair retains a dogmatic and sentimental attachment to European integration. He hopes to use the gratitude that the Bush administration undoubtedly owes him to obtain its support for Britain's joining the euro and for its ratification of the proposed European "constitution" that would in effect make the nation a European province. Blair's policy here is rooted partly in personal vanity -- he would like to be the first President of Europe -- and partly in the conviction that he can transform the European Union into a reliable pro-American ally by leading a coalition of Eastern and Mediterranean Europeans against the Franco-German central bloc.

This is an illusion. Blair might well be able to pull off such a coup -- with American support -- by re-drawing the institutional rules and boundaries of European/Atlanticist institutions along looser, more flexible, deregulated, and U.S.-friendly lines. The current debate on the proposed European constitution would be the perfect occasion for such a redesign. But Blair opposes such reform. And the present institutional set- up of the EU is heavily biased in favor of building the EU as a "counterweight" to the U.S. on the Franco-German model. Its existing regulations and legal principles are explicitly federalist. Its bureaucrats are inspired by a Euro-nationalist drive that predisposes them to anti- Americanism. Almost all its existing members, especially the smaller states, favor a federal European identity with a common foreign and defense policy. Its applicant members have signed on to transitional economic burdens that will enable Paris, Berlin, and Brussels to purchase their loyalty with subsidies. And if that tactic fails, France may well veto their admission to the EU as President Chirac has threatened.

Tony Blair would find that, after a few years, Britain would no longer enjoy the sovereign freedom to align itself with the U.S. on Iraq or on anything else. At worst, a common European foreign and defense policy would conscript Britain and its European friends into an anti-American action; at best, it would impose paralysis on them in a crisis. In those circumstances Mr. Blair's fine personal courage would be as politically irrelevant as Harold Wilson's personal decency.