BICOM

In a speech to a conference in London, former-Prime Minister Tony Blair, now the Quartet’s Middle East envoy outlined his assessment of the region and called on the West to counter Islamist extremism, which he described as the root cause of “the biggest threat to global security.”

Blair warned that, “The threat of this radical Islam is not abating. It is growing. It is spreading across the world … It is undermining the possibility of peaceful co-existence in an era of globalisation.” Stating that, “It is in the Middle East that the future of Islam will be decided,” Blair outlined a division “between those with a modern view of the Middle East, one of pluralistic societies and open economies” and “those who want to impose an ideology born out of a belief that there is one proper religion and one proper view of it.”

Blair posited that, “there is 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.“ Blair said peace between Israel and the Palestinians is “absolutely core to the region and the world. Not because the Israeli / Palestinian conflict is the cause of our problems. But because solving it would be such a victory for the very forces we should support.” He suggested that “after years of it being said that solving this question is the route to solving the regions’ problems, we’re about to enter a new phase where solving the region’s problems a critical part of solving the Israeli / Palestinian issue.”

Blair contended that “the real battle is against both Sunni and Shia extremism,” arguing that “whatever their mutual antagonism,” they share “the belief that those who think differently are the ‘enemy’ either within or without.” In particular, he emphasised that, “The Iranian Government play a deliberately de-stabilising role across the region.”