LONDON -- Ranks of clergy, the public and even his own supporters may be lined up against him, but Tony Blair is expected to side with the United States if it attacks Iraq.

In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has tried to make an electoral virtue of opposing war against Saddam Hussein.

Opinion polls in Britain suggest Blair should do the same.

But having stood unwaveringly with America since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, analysts and politicians believe that if President George W.

Bush makes the call to arms, Blair will answer whatever his reservations. "Downing Street (Blair's office) puts the transatlantic link above everything else," said Toby Dodge, associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs Think Tank. "I suspect when push comes to shove he will go with it."

That would give bush the vital diplomatic cover he needs to talk of an international campaign, not a unilateral grudge match.

Pollsters NOP this week found 52 percent of Britons opposed UK involvement in a war on Iraq and only 34 percent were in favor. Blair would much rather the call from bush never came.

King Abdullah of Jordan hinted last week that the UK premier was uneasy about a new war. "It seems America says we want to hit Baghdad. That's not what Jordanians think, or the British, the French, the Russians, the Chinese and everybody else," he told the ***Washington Post*** soon after talks with Blair.

There are differences between the two powers.

Bush has called flatly for "regime change" in Iraq. Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien said on Wednesday the UK's priority was the return of weapons inspectors, not overthrowing Saddam.

Iraq offered last week to discuss the possible return of UN weapons inspectors, sent in after the 1991 Persian Gulf war but withdrawn in 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing raid.

If that happened, Britain's dilemma would sharpen.

A warmongering Blair would also jar with his European allies. Not only is Schroeder against an attack, France's Jacques Chirac said last week he could only back action if it were endorsed by a new United Nations resolution.

The U.S. and UK say Saddam is already in breach of dozens.

But none of this is likely to drive a wedge between Bush and Blair, who believes standing shoulder to shoulder with Washington gives Britain unique international leverage as a bridge between the U.S. and Europe.

"It's such a central part of Blair's foreign policy approach, I can't see him backing off it," Dodge said.

Baghdad seems to be pinning its hopes on Britain reining in the Bush administration.

"If Britain refused to go along with the United States war against Iraq then I think the American administration would find it very difficult to go ahead," Iraq's envoy in London, Mudhafar Amin, told Reuters.

That plea fell on deaf ears. A foreign office source said he was surprised anybody saw Britain mediating on Saddam's behalf.

--- Mass Opposition --- But what would be the cost of a second Persian Gulf war, given that Blair faces serious opposition at home? More than 160 parliamentarians, most from Blair's ruling Labor Party, have signed a motion expressing "deep unease" about Britain backing military strikes against Baghdad.

Rowan Williams, soon to become Archbishop of Canterbury, also joined the anti-war lobby this week. He was the highest-profile of about 3,000 Christian signatories calling a potential U.S.-led attack "immoral and illegal".

"If Britain drifts into war without national consensus and consent ... there will be an enormous outcry, certainly among backbench Labor MPs in Parliament and much more widely among a public whose revenge takes place at the ballot box," former foreign office minister Tony Lloyd warned.

Former diplomats are uneasy and even defense experts, not normally squeamish, are asking the key question -- why now? "Why should international containment that has held for over a decade be now thought likely to break down?" Sir Michael Quinlan, former chief civil servant at the Ministry of Defense, asked in a letter to the ***Financial Times***.

Blair talked months ago of providing evidence of Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction but nothing has been produced, leading to speculation that it would look a bit thin.

But pollsters say war only proves disastrous for governments when they go badly -- a fact not lost on the government.

Roger Mortimore of Mori said the public may feel war is unnecessary, something that wasn't true of the Afghanistan campaign, the first Persian Gulf war or the Falklands. "But the electorate tends to accept war as long as it goes well," he said. "It looks like it would be unpopular but I don't think it would become a make-or-break electoral issue."