Former British prime minister Tony Blair gave an important speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week. Everyone should read it. And while you print it out, you might as well print out Blair's March 18, 2003, speech to the House of Commons arguing for the deposition of Saddam Hussein and his July 18, 2003, speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on the war on terror and the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom. Taken together, these three speeches are the best guide to Blair's world view. And they establish him as one of the most important political figures of the (still young!) twenty-first century. Choice cuts from last week's speech:
The struggle faced by the world, including the majority of Muslims, is posed by an extreme and misguided form of Islam. Our job is simple: it is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating the extremists who don't. But it can't be done without our active and wholehearted participation. It is one struggle with many dimensions and varied arenas. There is a link between the murders in Mumbai, the terror attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempts to destabilise countries like Yemen, and the training camps of insurgents in Somalia. It is not one movement. There is no defined command and control. But there is a shared ideology. There are many links criss-crossing the map of Jihadist extremism. And there are elements in the leadership of a major country, namely Iran, that can support and succour its practitioners.
And:
The ideology we are fighting is not based on justice. That is a cause we can understand. And world-wide these groups are adept, certainly, at using causes that indeed are about justice, like Palestine. Their cause, at its core, however, is not about the pursuit of values that we can relate to; but in pursuit of values that directly contradict our way of life. They don't believe in democracy, equality or freedom. They will espouse, tactically, any of these values if necessary. But at heart what they want is a society and state run on their view of Islam. They are not pluralists. They are the antithesis of pluralism. And they don't think that only their own community or state should be like that. They think the world should be governed like that.
And:
'Look there are people in this world who are crazy,' a friend said to me the other day, 'leave them to be crazy.' Except the problem is that they won't leave us in the comfort of our lives. That's not the way the world works today. The Holy Land, that from Tel Aviv to the River Jordan, could fit within a small US state, is many, many thousands of miles from here. But, whether there is peace there or not, will affect our peace.
"[I[t is time to wrench ourselves out of a state of denial," said Blair, who concluded his speech thusly: "We have to rediscover some confidence and conviction in who we are, how far we've come and what we believe in. By the way, I think this even about the economic crisis. It is severe. It's going to be really, really hard. But we will get through it and not by abandoning the market or open economic system but by learning our lessons and adjusting the system in a way that makes it better. But, on any basis, this system has delivered amazing leaps forward in prosperity for our citizens and we shouldn't, against the gloom, forget it." There's a school of thought that says Republicans should look to the Tories for lessons on how to recover lost power. Perhaps so. But if you are trying to find a language for your convictions, a way to explain why it's necessary to fight jihadism and expand the democratic capitalist realm, look to Blair.