The global battle of values
The thoughtful speech made by Tony Blair to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council yesterday is worth reading in full. At its heart, it argues that the war on terrorism is not the West versus the East but what he calls “Moderate, Mainstream Islam” against what he calls “Reactionary Islam”. I agree with this.
He summarised his case as follows:
“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.”
“My point is that this war can’t be won in a conventional way. It can only be won by showing that our values are stronger, better and more just, more fair than the alternative. Doing this, however, requires us to change dramatically the focus of our policy.”
Refering to the current crisis in the Middle East, he stated: “We will continue to do all we can to halt the hostilities. But once that has happened, we must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us.”
The precise nature of this renaissance will be of the utmost importance and the media – such as the BBC [where you can see and hear the speech being delivered] -are interpreting the reference to something of a rethink by Prime Minister. What is very unclear is how this rethink will translate into different policies and actions.