Protests Are All About Britain, Not Bush

DATELINE: LONDON

So what did President Bush make of it all? A presidential visit is a whirl of scattered impressions seen from the back of a limousine -- and intense hours of conversation in formal rooms: a snatch of bunting on the Mall and planning sessions with Prime Minister Tony Blair; an edited collation of evening news programs and detailed briefings on the state of British public opinion.

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From all that, he would take home hard facts and general impressions. He would have observed the continuing strength and intimacy of the Anglo-American alliance. He would have read the polls showing that a majority of British people support the war on terrorism -- and his visit. He would have seen that important parts of the press vigorously support the war. He would have been forcefully reminded that Britain, too, is a terrorist target -- and that the British are able to mourn their losses and to keep fighting.

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At the same time, Bush would have perceived how very nervous his British hosts were about this visit. He would have understood why no public events had been scheduled for him -- and why his car took him only as far as from the back door to the front door of Buckingham Palace. He would have apprehended the hostile political attitudes of the heir to the British crown -- and his acute political senses would have perceived the loosening of Blair's grip on the Labor Party.

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It's an ambiguous picture, in other words, tinged with tendencies both good and bad from an American point of view. But there is at least one unambiguity that he would certainly have witnessed -- and that millions of Americans will witness with him.

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The culminating moment of the big anti-war demonstration Thursday was the toppling of a Bush effigy, parodying the liberation of Baghdad on April 9. Demonstrators took turns stamping and trampling on the statue.

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I spent three hours with the marchers Thursday and talked to many dozens of them. Many ridiculed the "bubble" in which the president supposedly moved -- and wondered, with varying degrees of sarcasm, whether anyone would tell him about their actions in Trafalgar Square. They seemed to take for granted that if Bush -- and Americans in general -- saw what the demonstrators were doing, that Bush (and Americans) would somehow be impressed.

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What does Bush make of it? The protests and jeers he drew on his visit will not cause him to rethink his policies. Instead, those protests and jeers will feed worries about the future of Britain.

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The argument over Bush's visit is not an argument about him at all. The anti-Bush mood is a spur that some hope to use to hasten Britain ever further into the European Union and that others hope to use to legitimize their sympathies for the enemy in the war on terrorism.

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The Iraq war has become a war within the countries of Europe over their future identity -- and that war is now being waged in Britain.