While the world contemplates war, our leader keeps his fingers crossed

After the last election Tony Blair set himself three priorities for a second term. He confided to his close allies that two of his objectives were "Europe" – code for joining the euro – and the revival of public services. His third was more surprising. He was gripped by the importance of maintaining the closest possible relationship with the US under President Bush.

I am told his line was something like this: "I am determined to show that a left-of-centre government can work closely with the US even if it has a Republican president". This was before 11 September and at a time when some of Mr Blair's aides were still mourning the departure of Bill Clinton, the defeat of Al Gore and despairing of the philistine insularity already on show in the new Bush administration. The Prime Minister was having none of it. Here was a president he could do business with. Here was a president he would do business with.

Mr Blair's comments at the last Cabinet meeting before the summer break were in a similar vein. During a brief discussion on Iraq he warned his Cabinet colleagues that their opponents could not stomach the fact that a Labour government enjoyed good relations with a Republican administration in Washington. They must not walk into a trap by undermining the special relationship.

But who are these opponents? Who are setting the traps? There is a traditional anti-Americanism in some parts of the Labour Party, but when Mr Blair challenged this instinct at last year's party conference he received a rousing reception. These days there is a much stronger pro-American streak in the party, which is overwhelming any hostility there might be. Indeed, anyone who has read Joe Klein's recent book on Bill Clinton will be reminded how closely New Labour has followed the policies of the former president. There are more echoes from the Clinton years than from anywhere in Europe.

Possibly the Prime Minister senses that his closeness to President Bush will be an important positive factor in a euro referendum campaign. The anti-euro opponents will not be able to claim with any credibility that Mr Blair's support for a single currency was fuelled by an anti-American streak. But that is not a central plank in the strategy of the anti-euro opponents. They are not mad enough to assume that they will win a referendum by turning it into a Europe versus US debate.

Maybe the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph – more formidable opponents these days than the Conservative Party itself – will rejoice if the natural order resumes and it is the Tories who are close to a right-wing president. But these newspapers, affecting outrage on other matters, show no sign of deliberately steering Mr Blair away from his friend in Washington. In his determination to remain close to an insular right- wing President, the Prime Minister saw traps and opponents where none really existed. No one was planning to bracket him as an anti- American, not even the Daily Mail.

There are other substantial and worthy reasons for Mr Blair's defiant loyalty. He sees Britain's relationship with the US as a bridgehead with Europe. Although Iraq illustrates the flaws in such an approach there is no doubt that his obsessive Atlanticism differs from Margaret Thatcher's because of his commitment to Europe. The Labour leader was also quick to recognise the case for engaging with the world's only superpower rather than encouraging its unilateralist instincts by keeping a distance. But there is this additional factor that is almost irrational in its defensiveness: in the dark days of never-ending election defeats Labour was seen to be soft on defence, while Margaret Thatcher enhanced her international reputation by lording it around the world with Ronald Reagan. New Labour must be seen to be strong. Labour prime ministers can lord it with presidents too.

Mr Blair has formed other relationships, partly to show that he is leading a Labour government that is quite different from any past regimes, and one that is recognisably "new". In each case these partnerships were formed out of an exaggerated sense of weakness.

Those who worked with him at close quarters during the early years of his first term report a determination to retain his relationship with the former Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown. He would not let the critics get in the way. But in reality the critics were more bemused than overtly hostile. In the end it was events such as landslide election wins, and the Prime Minster's opposition to changing the voting system, which undermined the relationship. Similarly in the early years he expressed his determination to keep various business figures in the Government. He was not going to allow opponents to force out the likes of Geoffrey Robinson. But it was Mr Blair himself who forced out Mr Robinson and others. There were few opponents obsessed about driving a wedge between government and business. In the early years of the first term there were not many opponents around.

Now events, and some of President Bush's aides, are starting to cause strains on another relationship. The awkward reality is that Mr Blair has chosen to forge close ties with a deeply divided US administration. Before 11 September there had been no major speech or statement on international affairs from anyone in the Bush administration, including the President himself. The reason for this huge gap was that no senior figure could agree on what should be in such a statement. Now those senior figures are all still there, contemplating a strike against Iraq.

There is some evidence to suggest that the President himself is a pragmatic hawk rather than a reckless one. This is what Mr Blair must be hoping will become more evident over the next few weeks: that there will be one more attempt through the UN to allow the inspectors into Baghdad and a wider acknowledgement from Bush that the international community matters. Public opinion could change fairly quickly if the US was to take such a course.

But there was no need for the Labour leader to contrive a position of such closeness in the first place. Quite needlessly, he finds himself caught between a US regime, over which he has no control, and his own party, over which – on this issue – he has little control. If anything, the reports of concern from Cabinet level downwards underestimate the degree of opposition to a unilateralist US attack on Iraq supported by a British Prime Minister. There is no rational reason why a middling European power such as Britain should support every move made in the US. Mr Blair would be wise to establish some distance. Given the domestic constraints and the erratic behaviour of his more powerful partner, he does not have much choice in the matter.