What's in it for Tony?

In my morning review of the blogosphere, an entry in Daily Kos took me to this news story about the Prime Minister of Great Britain.  In still another baffling move Bush-ward, Tony Blair apparently will let neither public opinion in his own nation, nor rising opposition in Parliament within his own political base, nor (now) the likelihood of deeply considered and deeply felt Security Council vetoes to deter him from plastering himself and his country’s fortunes firmly to parts-unmentionable of Dubya.

It doesn’t make sense that what once appeared to be an erudite, progressive, thoughtful man, leading Britain with firm hand into a peaceful international community, has turned into this.  In the United States, the leadership transformation is (unfortunately) perfectly explicable—subtract Clinton and add Bush, and raving-lunatic hell breaks out.  But Blair was PM then and is PM now, with much the same cast of characters in his Cabinet at 10 Downing, and I suspect that 90-95% of today’s Labour MPs are the same people who were in Parliament three years ago.  So what has changed?

A friend of mine at work, a close observer of Anglo-Irish relations (and thus, of the British political scene), suggests that the explanation must fall into one (or more?) of four possibilities:

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