It's often been said that those who seek power most are the least suitable for the job. Even in a democracy, it's inevitable that the leaders we elect will have the trait of seeking power. There have been a few exceptions in the kinds of polticians who have attained office more or less through accident without actively seeking power. Václav Havel, the former Czech president, is probably the best-known of this particular breed. Vytautas Landsbergis, the former Lithuanian president is another one. But they're exceedingly rare, and only come to power in exceptional circumstances.

So what do you do once you make it to the highest office in the land, be it President or Prime Minister? The goal of achieving power has been reached, and so the question becomes what to do with it. Having power without wielding it is futile. Aside from running the country day-to-day, politicians often end up dreaming about a Legacy, something that will survive their inevitable demise from power, something that will make others remember them 50 and 100 years from now. The Legacy Quest can become a destructive force if its importance becomes too great. Usually it's just an irritant, but too many grandiose schemes have been dreamed up solely for the purpose of establishing a Legacy. In order to establish a true Legacy, and a positive one at that, requires not just skill and vision, but also historical luck. If you're in power at a time when important decisions must be taken with long-lasting effects, the path to a "natural" legacy (rather than a contrived one) opens up.

When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he already had his eyes on not just one, but perhaps several Legacies. One is the remaking of British politics, where his dream was to unite the left-of-center parties (Labour and the LibDems) in order to shut the Conservatives out for a long time. Here he became a victim of his own success, as the majorities he won in 1997 and 2001 were so enormous that he did not need the LibDems for anything, and the Conservatives were imploding of their own accord. But Blair also had his eyes on a much bigger prize, the one that history had thrown into his lap and which he thought would make his an important figure in the annals of Great Britain. And that was Europe, and more specifically, the euro. He believed, or gave the impression he believed, that abolishing the pound and adopting the euro was in Britain's best long-term interest. Moreover, he was determined to use his popularity in order to convince the notoriously skeptical British public of his case. Establishing better relations with Europe would show that Britain did have an important voice in shaping the future of the EU, and Blair put a lot of effort into building relationships with the new wave of leftist politicians who had come to power in the late 1990's. Schröder in Germany and Jospin in France were his allies of the Third Way, the New Middle, or whatever catchy but vacuous moniker they adopted.

September 11th changed all that. Faced with the threat of Evil in Our Time, Blair never blinked and has been a dependable ally of the US in the fight against terrorism. He has been dependable not because of opportunist political calculation, but because he actually did and does believe that the position of the US and her allies is the right one. Not just in pragmatic terms, but more importantly, in moral terms. He actually does really believe this; for a politician who grew up and made his career by following the latest opinion poll and focus group, this is a big change. His belief in the fundamental rightness of our cause, the necessity of defeating the evil of Islamofacsism and its minions, is in stark contrast with his position on the euro. He probably does think that Britain's entry into European Monetary Union is a good idea, but there is no deep abiding conviction there. He never really put his reputation and popularity on the line in order to expound that message. The difference between his campaign for the euro and now for liberty shows where he really thinks Britain's principal interests lie, and it's not the former. For someone like Blair, who's been chained by opinion polls all his life, there must be a sense of liberation in actually leading rather than following.

So ironically Blair is getting his War Legacy, and in its effect it's almost the exact opposite of his hoped-for but stillborn Euro Legacy. Where he thought he'd bring Britain closer to Europe, the old ties of the Anglosphere prove stronger. Where he wanted to be friends with the French and Germans, he now sees their perfidy. Although it's taken him a long time to realize that Britain has more in common with the US than Europe, it's better late than never. Blair is building himself an unexpected (not in the least to himself) but justly deserved Legacy.