PM calls for "complete renaissance" on foreign policy
1 August 2006
Tony Blair is calling for a radical rethink of foreign policy to combat "Reactionary Islam" with an "arc of moderation" across the Middle East.
The Prime Minister says that the battle against global extremism will not be won unless current strategy is reappraised, and moderate, mainstream Islam is empowered.
Speaking in a major speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, Mr Blair said:
"Across the Middle East, there is a process of modernisation as well as reaction.
"It is unnoticed but it is there: in the UAE; in Bahrain; in Kuwait; in Qatar. In Egypt, there is debate about the speed of change but not about its direction. In Libya and Algeria, there is both greater stability and a gradual but significant opening up."
He called for the peace process between Israel and Palestine to be "re-energised" in a "dramatic and profound manner".
Proof of these two states existing in peace, side-by-side, would "fatally undermine" the case of "Reactionary Islam".
"Unless we reappraise our strategy, unless we revitalise the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to make peace between Israel and Palestine we will not win and this is a battle we must win."
Although the speech to the was planned before the current hostilities in the Lebanon, he says that the conflict had brought his thinking into "sharp relief".
The Prime Minister also used the speech to pay tribute to the soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
