It used to be a canard of Labo[u]r Party politics, and probably still is, to welcome the election of another Labour government elsewhere in the world, because it portended forthcoming electoral success for one's own party.
The English-speaking Labour parties (Australia, Britain, New Zealand) have been particularly prone to this flowery rhetoric, even though in most cases the electoral results were coincidental, and the electoral cycles so nearly as to be completely independent.
[The only exception might have been the 1972 elections in Australia and New Zealand. An aside to those who know]
But now with the Iraq war, the domestic politics of Australia, the United States and Britain really are inter-connected. Look at the pages of the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald when reports are issued about the intelligence estimates and use of intelligence before the war. What is written by the Senate in Washington about Nigerian uranium has direct ramifications for British domestic politics, and likewise what is said in London has an effect in Washington.
To be sure, this is no equilateral triangle of influence; what happens in Washington has a larger effect in London than vice versa, and what happens in both those cities has a larger effect in Canberra than Canberra will ever have elsewhere.
I suspect that this degree of inter-relatedness is higher than in previous conflicts, precisely because the reasons for the war, and its conduct have become so controversial.
After all, if it had been a rousing success (a la WWII), the war itself would not be such a domestic political issue.
Posted by robe0419 at July 10, 2004 3:23 PM