| Submit your comments on this article |
| Britain |
| Why We Fight On |
| 2007-05-11 |
| By Tony Blair Originally given March 21, 2006 at the Foreign Policy Center in London. Over these past nine years, Britain has pursued a markedly different foreign policy. We have been strongly activist, justifying our actions, even if not always successfully, at least as much by reference to values as interests. We have constructed a foreign policy agenda that has sought to link, in values, military action in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq with diplomatic action on climate change, world trade, Africa and Palestine. I set out the basis for this in the Chicago speech of 1999 where I called for a doctrine of international community, and again in the speech to the US Congress in July 2003. The basic thesis is that the defining characteristic of today's world is its interdependence; that whereas the economics of globalisation are well matured, the politics of globalisation are not; and that unless we articulate a common global policy based on common values, we risk chaos threatening our stability, economic and political, through letting extremism, conflict or injustice go unchecked. The consequence of this thesis is a policy of engagement not isolation; and one that is active not reactive. Confusingly, its proponents and opponents come from all sides of the political spectrum. So it is apparently a "neo-conservative" ie right wing view, to be ardently in favour of spreading democracy round the world; whilst others on the right take the view that this is dangerous and deluded - the only thing that matters is an immediate view of national interest. Some progressives see intervention as humanitarian and necessary; others take the view that provided dictators don't threaten our citizens directly, what they do with their own, is up to them. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #8 But cleaning out the rat-holes of the world in an age of nuclear terror is not virtuous, it is not even selfish, it is sane. Spot FUCKING on, Excalibur! |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-05-11 22:33 |
| #7 Tony gives a great speech, and he did commit Britain to the WOT. Thank you, Tony. However, Britain has been subsumed by the EU on his watch. The British military is being downsized. Their military equipment is being bought in the EU. The result will be an army like the French. Not operable with US forces and no projection ability. Iraq will be the last cooperative military venture for the forseeable future. In fact the "special relationship" may be over for now. If one wants a look at how multiculti and political correctness work out, one only has to look at Britain. |
| Posted by: SR-71 2007-05-11 16:00 |
| #6 I was commenting on Excalibur's comment, and failed to comment on Tony's speech. He gets a few things right, and a whole lot of things wrong: His reading of Islam, its goals, its intents, and its history, is so PC that it is breathtaking. One has to continually remind people who believe in a variant that "Islam is a religion of peace" is that it grew by ARMED FORCE. The only people who listened to Islam and who embraced it voluntarily, without any coercion, were the Mongols, and they had beaten the crap out of the Arabs militarily. Only by posing as the divinely blessed race were the Arabs able to save face, gain control, and retain control, over the Mongols. The Mongols. THE MONGOLS. Man, that's like being endorsed by Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, both Il-Jongs, and the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, what sort of religion is Islam if murderous, rampaging, pillaging Mongols find it so attractive that the whole society embraces it wholeheartedly and propagates it back to their own homeland, dropping their own native religion like a hot potato? What's more amazing is that people think they will solve problems and get things right even if the "facts" that they think they know are fundamentally WRONG? Stupid as shit. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2007-05-11 13:23 |
| #5 Oh, and don't forget the incredibly self-centered Jeffersonians, Excalibur: The Prototype for that group sold Haitian independence down the river to prevent a Black Democracy from upsetting the Southern States applecart. I think the Jacksonians can be sold on the idea that the liberation of the Muslim woman as being in the national interest IF the case was articulated by the "White Knight Leader". Alas, Reagan now rides with the angels, and Dubya's not the Gipper. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2007-05-11 12:56 |
| #4 If the local recent elections are any indication, Jack, Mr Brown will only be PM until the next Parliamentary election. We can hope, anyway. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-05-11 11:54 |
| #3 Blair is as unflinching as W and is sort of a British version of Clinton in that he is smart, politically astute, has a progressive lawyer for wife and actually can speak French. Brown on the other hand is penny pinching, taxing, uninspiring Scot who will pull the Brits back from our reach and become more isolationist and more European. Sarkozy won't even have the chance to work witih Blair putting W in a very lonely position to accomplish anything with Sarkozy and Merkel. Love to have Tony around with the new French, Germans, Canadians and UK. I have the feeling the Euros have been reading Mark Steyn and are scared to death and have voted with that fear. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-05-11 10:20 |
| #2 A crucial mistake - both in thinking and in rhetoric - of the neocons is in taking a Wilsonian line in distinguishing policy based on interest and policy based on values. The liberation of half a billion muslim women from a Dark Ages rape-cult is not only an expression of our values; it is in our vital interest. The Jacksonians, and a selfish cringing "left", will never be convinced the freedom of people of faraway countries of whom we know nothing is worth our blood and treasure. Hell, they may even be right. But cleaning out the rat-holes of the world in an age of nuclear terror is not virtuous, it is not even selfish, it is sane. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-05-11 09:09 |
| #1 Wow. Is there a Cliff Notes version? I read enough to know it's worth remembering, 15 months later, and saved a copy for a trip to the 'reading room'. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-05-11 07:37 |