For Tony Blair, ‘radical’ Islam is a growing threat

LONDON: The West should set aside its differences with Russia and China to focus on the growing threat from radical Islam, Tony Blair said Wednesday, in a speech that included a call to support Egypt’s military government against its Muslim Brotherhood opponents.
In a speech in London, the Middle East envoy said the spread of extremist ideology in that region as well as in Pakistan, Afghanistan and North Africa “represents the biggest threat to global security of the 21st century.” The former British prime minister said that tackling “a radicalized and politicized view of Islam” should be at the top of the global political agenda. He said many in the West seemed “curiously resistant” to face up to a force that “is undermining the possibility of peaceful co-existence in an era of globalization.”
Blair, Britain’s prime minister between 1997 and 2007, is now Middle East envoy for the Quartet of the United Nations, the European Union, the US and Russia.
In a speech in London, he said that “whatever our other differences, we should be prepared to reach out and co-operate with the East, and in particular Russia and China,” to combat extremism.
Blair’s political legacy in Britain is tarnished by his decision to lead the country into the divisive invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Blair acknowledged the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan had undermined Western willingness to intervene in the Middle East. But he called for the West to engage with the region, saying “we have to stop treating each country on the basis of whatever seems to make for the easiest life for us at any one time.”
Blair argued that “on the fate of Egypt hangs the future of the region.” He defended the coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi last year, saying “the Muslim Brotherhood government was not simply a bad government. It was systematically taking over the traditions and institutions of the country.” He said the protest that led to Morsi’s ouster “was not an ordinary protest. It was the absolutely necessary rescue of a nation. We should support the new government and help.”
Blair said there was a shared interest between East and West on the dangers of religious extremism and it should be at the top of the global agenda. He said many people were “curiously reluctant” to acknowledge the common thread linking militant movements around the world, but said “we have to take sides” against a dangerous ideology that was a “perversion” of Islam.
“There is a Titanic struggle going on within the region between those who want the region to embrace the modern world, politically, socially and economically, and those who instead want to create a politics of religious difference and exclusivity. This is the battle,” Blair said.
Taking sides meant supporting the principles of religious freedom and open rules-based economies, whether they were held by states or revolutionaries.
In reality, this meant backing the new governments in Egypt and Tunisia and helping the security services in Libya and Yemen to reform, he said.
In Syria, which he called “an unmitigated disaster”, Blair said both the prospect of President Bashar al-Assad staying in power and the opposition taking over seemed like “bad options”.
“Repugnant though it may seem, the only way forward is to conclude the best agreement possible even if it means in the interim President Assad stays for a period,” he said.
He also said it was an “absurdity” that Western nations spent so much on defending themselves against Islamist extremism that was being taught to young people in countries “with whom we have intimate security and defence relationships”.
Blair suggested the G20 launch an international programme to eradicate religious intolerance from schools systems and civil society organisations in those countries.
“They need us to make this a core part of the international dialogue in order to force the necessary change within their own societies,” he said.
“This struggle between what we may call the open-minded and the closed-minded is at the heart of whether the 21st century turns in the direction of peaceful co-existence or conflict between people of different cultures.”
Blair was prime minister between 1997 and 2007 and is now representative for the Middle East Quartet, comprised of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.