Oil Meets Oxbridge : Blair: The British leader and Bush are on their own.(Tony Blair and George W. Bush)(Brief Article)

When George W. Bush first met Tony Blair, at Camp David in February 2001, they looked like the odd couple of geopolitics. The world swiftly pegged them as terminally incompatible: the oil patch meets Oxbridge. Well, the Bush-Blair special relationship is no laughing matter anymore. As a war in Iraq looms and erstwhile U.S. allies head for the exits, the president needs the prime minister more than ever. America doesn't require Britain's military help, says John Chipman, director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. But Blair's support gives Bush "greater credibility" among potential partners. Plus, Chipman says, "even superpowers don't like being lonely."

Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have brought Bush and Blair together in ways the two leaders could hardly have imagined at their first meeting. They've met one-on-one four times since 9-11. They preview each other's speeches. NEWSWEEK has learned that Blair got an early look at Bush's speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 12, and helped shape its more multilateral tone. Bush got a sneak peek at Blair's Sept. 24 statement to Parliament on Iraq; his evidence against Saddam was bolstered by U.S. intelligence. They speak regularly on the White House-Downing Street hot line. Bush sometimes places calls to Blair after his morning run, when it's midday across the Atlantic, greeting Blair as "my friend in London."

Not since the days of Roosevelt and Churchill has armed conflict brought together two such politically disparate American and British leaders. Blair is a career center-left politician and Oxford-educated cosmopolitan who once delivered, in French, a 35-minute speech to the French Assembly. Bush, at 56 seven years older than Blair, is a conservative Texas Republican who in Paris earlier this year publicly ridiculed an American TV correspondent for asking the French president a question in French. "They come from very different political clans," says Denis MacShane, a British M.P. "But their politics are driven not by ideologies, but by values."

The two leaders are convinced that terrorism, political repression and antidemocratic forces in general are a threat to global security and economic well-being. They both also have deeply held Christian religious beliefs, though Blair, unlike Bush, doesn't wear them on his sleeve. From their very first meeting, when over an "unscripted, no notes" breakfast ...