The Spectator

Not going quietly

Tony Blair’s piece in the Sunday Times echoes some familiar themes of his. But the language seems blunter than usual, perhaps because it is not broken up by the Prime Minister’s verbal mannerisms. He pronounces that,

“We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first.I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong.”

Yet it is when he gets on to the question of Muslim grievances and terrorism that he really lets rip:

“tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a United Nations-supervised democratic process and the Muslims in both countries get the chance to vote, which incidentally they take in very large numbers. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims. What’s more, British troops are risking their lives trying to prevent the killing. Why should anyone feel angry about us? Why aren’t they angry about the people doing the killing?”

You can almost feel Blair’s frustration that his foreign policy–motivated by noble goals, to my mind–has not been more successful. Blair’s lecture circuit speeches may be more trenchant, and interesting, than many of us are expecting.

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