Test for Blair's 'loyalty' strategy

"The fact is, Blair is among the president's top three to four advisers on foreign affairs," Mr. Hulsman says.

Blair's emphasis on the "special relationship" is of course not new - though the political trouble he's now facing, in part because of it, is particularly intense. "There has been a very long history of Britain playing Greece to America's Rome," says Barry Buzan, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. "It has been the British position for several decades now, to be the bridge to North America and at the same time having to avoid choosing sides," he adds.

Blair is no exception, Mr. Daalder notes, despite being more pro-European than most of his predecessors. "There are huge differences between Blair's foreign policy and Bush's," he says. "Blair has a very different view of the nature of the world in which we live than Bush. But when push comes to shove, and the US goes one way, Britain can oppose or join in and mold the policy direction of the US."

One example is Iran. Britain disagrees with the idea of regime change, while quietly representing the "Anglo-Saxon" viewpoint in regular ministerial forays to Tehran. "We try very much to play the role of honest broker between the American view and other people's views," says one British diplomat who has worked alongside US counterparts in the UN and Middle East. "Lots of countries wouldn't think too highly of the Americans but are happier to speak to us; we can help the Americans by representing their views."

Still, as Blair visits Congress and the White House, the question remains whether Blair's influence is enough to allow him to claim success in his strategy.

When Blair and Bush first met at Camp David in February 2001, Bush said pointedly, "I can assure you that when either of us gets in a bind, there will be a friend on the other end of the phone."

With his domestic prospects sagging, Blair could use some help from Bush - an agreement to extradite two British nationals being held in Guantanamo, for example, or hints at a better shake for British companies in Iraq's reconstruction.

"It has not been well understood on this side of the Atlantic how much trouble Blair has amassed for his position on Iraq, or to what extent the British support on Iraq was just Blair's and not from the British public," says Klaus Larres, a visiting scholar at the Library of Congress from the University of London.

Blair said earlier this week that he expects one or two quid pro quos from Bush. While noting that the US has genuine concerns about terrorism and rogue states, he said Britain in return wants action on such issues as global poverty, trade, climate change, and the Middle East.

Daalder says Blair will realize that he "is not able sufficiently to mold US policy in the direction he wants" - and that whatever Bush offers is unlikely to sway a British public upset by broader domestic problems.

Still, the two leaders will stick together because they need each other, Mr. Larres says. "For either one to switch course when they've gone this far together would only make things worse," he says.

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