I'm encouraged

Last night in Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, England’s Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a speech on the Middle East and the War on Terrorism that finally made some sense.

I don’t know what his motives were for this speech – I hope more than political gain – but the man said some things that I have missed in speeches from Washington or Downing Street ever since September 11, 2001.

A few quotes: (You can read the whole speech here)

There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Middle East and touching, with increasing definition, countries far outside that region. To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation, that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian; Arab and Western; wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other. My argument to you today is this: we will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world.
The point is this. This is war, but of a completely unconventional kind.

Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalize the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine, we will not win. And this is a battle we must win.
What is happening today out in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and beyond is an elemental struggle about the values that will shape our future.
It is in part a struggle between what I will call reactionary Islam and moderate, mainstream Islam. But its implications go far wider. We are fighting a war, but not just against terrorism but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st century, about global values.

At other points in the speech he paints a one-sided and not entirely accurate picture of the arguments of people who are not in support of the intervention of the West in, specifically, Iraq. He defends the actions of America and Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan by saying we wanted “values change” not “regime change”. I’m not so sure that was the case. That was certainly not the grounds for going to war in those countries that was presented to us.

But anyway – he said two true things:

We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world.

I have been saying that it seems that our only weapon is force, and we need other weapons too. Fairness and justice should be what people around the world think of when they think of us, not the barrel of a gun.

Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalize the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine, we will not win.

These are biblical issues - and they apply equally to everyone. Lately we have not been bending every senew of our will to make peace between Israel and Palestine, in fact, we have lately been encouraging the war.

Thanks Tony. I hope George Bush is listening.

As the British would say, “spot on”.