Wednesday, August 02, 2006
What is Blair talking about?
The Times reports here on Tony Blair’s speech yesterday in Los Angeles. Apparently “He called for an “alliance of moderation” that would combat terrorism using values as much as military might.”
What exactly does he mean and how does he propose to do it? Well…
“To defeat extremism, the world needed an “alliance of moderation to paint a different future in which Muslim and Christian, Arab and Westerner, wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other.”
It sounds very nice in principle, but the practicalities involve, firstly identifying areas where there is no effective rule of law (not too difficult). Secondly a form of law will need to be adequately imposed and enforced, now this cannot be done by those presently there, otherwise they would have done it. So some form of occupying security force will be needed; this cannot be some temporary thing, but you need to be looking at a long term commitment of at least 25 years I would think. Remember in the meantime this unlucky force will be subject to “The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard”.
Once this basic rule of law is established, assuming it can be, then we can start to work on the values side of things, let’s look at what Blair has identified.
“The West had to address issues such as poverty, climate change, trade, but above all to “bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Palestine and Israel”.”
Poverty and trade are in reality part of the same issue. Climate change isn’t going to be a pressing concern here, I don’t see either sides doing environmental risk assessments before committing to military action, that is just so irrelevant it doesn’t bear mentioning. “Peace between Palestine and Israel”, it seems to me the first pre-requisite here must be an acceptance of each to rights of mutual existence, but this is only likely to come about after the populations have realised the mutual benefits of the values Blair is sort of talking about.
Moving on to poverty and trade, well these can only be addressed in the context of a relatively secure nation with a proper rule of law. Of course it’s not all as simple as that, even Blair cannot commit the UK to a free trade policy with such a state, no matter how much he even wants to, because he is subject to what the European Union will allow him to do on any trade issue. So he can talk about it, but he cannot deliver anything more than I can on this issue.
As for the commitment to providing security forces for law and order, well I think the UK is probably in no position to offer anything substantive, and even if we were, I’d question the wisdom of doing so, without a lot of hard thought and home support.
All Blair’s speech amounts to is a load of hot air, and ultimately he must know this; I feel the last thing this situation needs is “hot air”, it would be so much better if instead of mouthing unrealistic platitudes he were to show some real and genuine leadership; explain just what is possible and what it involves. A cold blast of reality would do nothing to inflame the situation.
As it is, we will remain (to some extent blameworthy) spectators to this tragedy, which no doubt every now and then will reach and touch us too. This is ultimately our choice, Blair is elected and even though we have a paucity of good opposition, each person must accept his or her own share of responsibility for that. We have the politicians we deserve.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
What exactly does he mean and how does he propose to do it? Well…
“To defeat extremism, the world needed an “alliance of moderation to paint a different future in which Muslim and Christian, Arab and Westerner, wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other.”
It sounds very nice in principle, but the practicalities involve, firstly identifying areas where there is no effective rule of law (not too difficult). Secondly a form of law will need to be adequately imposed and enforced, now this cannot be done by those presently there, otherwise they would have done it. So some form of occupying security force will be needed; this cannot be some temporary thing, but you need to be looking at a long term commitment of at least 25 years I would think. Remember in the meantime this unlucky force will be subject to “The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard”.
Once this basic rule of law is established, assuming it can be, then we can start to work on the values side of things, let’s look at what Blair has identified.
“The West had to address issues such as poverty, climate change, trade, but above all to “bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Palestine and Israel”.”
Poverty and trade are in reality part of the same issue. Climate change isn’t going to be a pressing concern here, I don’t see either sides doing environmental risk assessments before committing to military action, that is just so irrelevant it doesn’t bear mentioning. “Peace between Palestine and Israel”, it seems to me the first pre-requisite here must be an acceptance of each to rights of mutual existence, but this is only likely to come about after the populations have realised the mutual benefits of the values Blair is sort of talking about.
Moving on to poverty and trade, well these can only be addressed in the context of a relatively secure nation with a proper rule of law. Of course it’s not all as simple as that, even Blair cannot commit the UK to a free trade policy with such a state, no matter how much he even wants to, because he is subject to what the European Union will allow him to do on any trade issue. So he can talk about it, but he cannot deliver anything more than I can on this issue.
As for the commitment to providing security forces for law and order, well I think the UK is probably in no position to offer anything substantive, and even if we were, I’d question the wisdom of doing so, without a lot of hard thought and home support.
All Blair’s speech amounts to is a load of hot air, and ultimately he must know this; I feel the last thing this situation needs is “hot air”, it would be so much better if instead of mouthing unrealistic platitudes he were to show some real and genuine leadership; explain just what is possible and what it involves. A cold blast of reality would do nothing to inflame the situation.
As it is, we will remain (to some extent blameworthy) spectators to this tragedy, which no doubt every now and then will reach and touch us too. This is ultimately our choice, Blair is elected and even though we have a paucity of good opposition, each person must accept his or her own share of responsibility for that. We have the politicians we deserve.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
