I’ve just completed an 8-day trip in and around London. Tomorrow I’ll write more about the how familiar the news seemed — as a hint, I’ll mention that the validity of the English testing program is in doubt and busybodies across Southern England are complaining about urban sprawl — but today’s topic is the buzz about Iraq.

President Bush, the debate about Iraq, and the United Kingdom’s response to both have been front-page news in the country all week. Prime Minister Tony Blair, brushing aside the Conservative Party’s attempt to rejuvenate itself at a party conference, took much of the spotlight by continuing to sell the Washington-London policy on Saddam Hussein to a skeptical Europe. Over the weekend, he visited with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the British press explicitly talking about the kinds of deals being discussed to get the Russians on board (Iraq owes the country billions and is a major trading partner; Putin, for his part, denies that Russia would stoop to make foreign policy “in a bazaar” but the reality seems clear).

It is striking how effective Blair, the leader of a supposedly left-wing Labour government, has been in articulating the case for war, or at least the plausible threat of it, to forestall the further development of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The Conservatives spent all week complaining that Blair’s Labour Party had stolen the rhetoric of their free-market domestic agenda without truly understanding or seeking to implement it. On this, I think the Tories clearly have a point. But on foreign policy, it is simply impossible for the opposition to get to the right of Blair. They know this, and it frustrates them.

Actually, there was some talk at the Conservative Party conference about running to his left, or at least to his isolationist right, by raising critical questions about the Bush doctrine. If the party of Margaret Thatcher does this, it would be proof of its abject failure and political irrelevance.

Bush has the American people, most of Congress, and the British leadership (if not the general public) behind him. Militarily, only the UK has the wherewithal to provide a meaningful adjunct to US forces; Blair is talking about sending an entire armored division.

With the Bali bombing promising to keep terrorism — and its sponsors — in the forefront of the public consciousness for weeks and months to come, it’s nice to have allies, whatever their political provenance.