Slowly and carefully, Tony Blair is re-entering the foreign policy debate in Britain. Or, more correctly, he is trying to get a mature debate going. His speech today at Bloomberg – "Why the Middle East matters" – was reflective, not didactic, and signalled a nuanced approach to the complex set of interconnected challenges in the region. This will come as no surprise to those who have followed his work as envoy of the Quartet on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – with well over 100 visits to date.
What is more of a surprise is that there is a need to make an argument that the Middle East still matters. After all, the peace process generates a lot of sound and fury here – just take the noisy but fundamentally wrong boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign aimed at Israel, one of the handful of democracies in the region. But there is, notes Blair, a weariness in the public. He said:
"It is unsurprising that public opinion in the UK and elsewhere resents the notion that we should engage with the politics of the Middle East and beyond. We have been through painful engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. After 2008, we have had our own domestic anxieties following the financial crisis. And besides, if we want to engage, people reasonably ask: where, how and to what purpose?"
Well, we have a responsibility, he argues, pointing to "the chaos of Libya, whose government we intervened to change". Here he exposes the hypocrisy of the coalition. In July 2011, William Hague promised: "The Libyan people can be assured that we will remain on their side for as long as it takes." In September of that year, David Cameron and President Sarkozy visited Libya to take a victory lap. But since a flying visit to Tripoli in January 2013, the PM has been silent.
Libya and Syria are at the heart of Blair's argument: action started by this government but left incomplete. The passage on Syria is a direct attack on Cameron and Nick Clegg, and their inaction. Blair said:
"The result is a country in disintegration, millions displaced, a death toll approximating that of Iraq, with no end in sight and huge risks to regional stability."
Not a defence of liberal intervention, but a scrupulous account of the costs of doing nothing – particularly where the coalition has called for regime change. And, typically, looking at the bigger picture. The Middle East matters because we still want a peace deal between Israel and Palestine – one that John Kerry has been working hard for since his appointment as secretary of state. It matters because of oil and gas and our economic dependence on them. It matters because being played out in the region is, Blair says:
"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. This is the distorting feature. This is what makes intervention so fraught but non-intervention equally so."
This is a struggle between the modern world, which is pluralist, and the Islamist ideology, which is exclusivist. Blair speaks carefully – this is not about Islam: the ideology we must fight is, in his words, a "perversion" of the Qur'an. But he speaks bluntly, too: this is a fight on the streets of the UK. According to MI5 there were, as of 30 June 2013, 128 prisoners classified as terrorists or domestic extremists. Blair does not say so, but it is obvious that the coalition is failing here. It neither makes the argument against domestic extremism – with the honourable exception of Michael Gove – nor makes the links with those who export Islamist ideology, let alone taking any of the necessary action.
There is action we can and should take. China and Russia both face internal terrorist attacks. We should work with them – through the G20, Blair argues – to have a shared strategy, a common front against extremism. But further, we need to take sides, to support "the principles of religious freedom". He doesn't remake the case for intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan: that is a frozen argument. But he notes the consequences of those conflicts and of the intervention on Libya, and says non-intervention on Syria shows a western "wish at all costs to stay clear". Yet the voters in both Afghanistan and Iraq have embraced democracy with an enthusiasm that puts most of the west to shame.
If we don't go to the Middle East, it will come to us. That, in short, is the argument. We are involved. We are responsible. He continued:
"We have to take sides. 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. We have to have an approach to the region that is coherent and sees it as a whole. And above all, we have to commit. We have to engage."
There is detail on the right next steps for Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Iran and the Middle East peace process. Disagree with it, if you will, but don't ignore it. These are the reflections of a hugely experienced politician who has the trust of the Quartet. They are as thoughtful, and thought-provoking, as those of the Blair of old, but there is a new strain: wisdom. This is a speech to read and to react to. It should prick consciences and spur action.
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