Tony Blair and tackling radical Islam (merged thread)

[JMA]

In a letter to Free Malasia Today we get an interesting perspective:

The rise of radical Islam

In our country’s context it is a struggle between tolerant, liberal and peaceful Malaysians of all races and religion and the narrow minded few who want to impose their own brand of Islam on everyone. Should the extremists who spread the “theology of hatred” win against those who preach “the theology of tolerance and peace” it will turn a peaceful and tolerant country where different races and religions have lived side by side for a very long time into a Taliban state. We adopt hudud at our peril. It’s too depressing to ponder such an outcome.

[carl]

JMA:

You are right. It did take a lot of moxie for Mr. Blair to say what he did. The UK is even more PC than the US so they won't be pleased by what he had to say and judging by the comments to the transcript of his speech even the people who are inclined to agree with him resent him for being him.

I don't think there is much we can do, with one exception, beyond what Dr. Furnish proposes in post #12.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=19947

We just keep on killing them that comes after us until they stop. But to do that we have to do what Mr. Blair says, recognize that they are really after us. The Muslims themselves are going to have to sort this out ultimately.

The nightmare come true would be if the convert or die boys win the current struggle for dominance in the Muslim world. Then there is a good possibility that lots of nukes would get slung for real. This is where the exception I spoke about comes in. That is the Pak Army/ISI. They have the nukes already and seem to be leaning quite far in the convert or die direction. That organization has to be brought low somehow, someway before they can kill tens of millions.

[davidbfpo]

In the UK ex-PM Tony Blair has a very mixed reputation. The current Labour Party IMHO would prefer he kept quiet, as his speeches invariably remind potential supporters what he did at home and abroad. The LibDems detest him for the Iraq War, but like him for his unwavering pro-EU stance. As for the Tories he is a painful reminder what 'new' Labour did and just might do again. Coming in maybe soon in the European Parliament elections (22nd May 2014) is UKIP, a nationalist party who hate the EU and virtually everything Tony Blair stands for - including enabling large-scale immigration (from the EU and beyond).

Tony Blair somehow is a Middle East Peace Envoy, I think for the EU, but what is contribution is very unclear. Partly as he is a consistent friend of Israel and supporter of generals, kings and the like in power.

This passage struck me as rather odd:

Third, in the centre of this maelstrom, is Israel. Its alliance with the USA, its partnership with leading countries of Europe....

A number of European countries would ask what is this partnership. Not Israel's frankly weird aprticipation in the annual Eurovision singing contest, but 'partnership'. Yes there is cooperation in a number of spheres, but for a long time now Europe has questioned openly Israeli policies and I doubt any Israeli thinks its European partners are 'allies'.

I have read his speech now, which I expect he was well paid for.

I simply don't know where to start, both in his description of the situation in the Middle East (which appears to have rather elastic boundaries) and what the 'West' should do. Preaching more commitment is the answer in 2014 is - well - politically stupid.

Yes we, the UK, have national interests in the region and a good number of them in effect lead to official UK support for regimes that are unpleasant to their own people. Supporting the generals in Egypt in their repression, thankfully not with gold, just a few weapons, is a mistake.

Nor should the UK overlook the long-term aims and current practices of those who follow the Wahabi faith, whose version of Islam is to say the least conservative in virtually every sphere of life.

As one neo-con group here advocated Tony Blair is "in bed" with the Muslim Brotherhood already, having two of them as advisers. There's nothing like a "cat fight" between Tony Blair and the Henry Jackson Society. See:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...ist-group.html

So your speech is noted Tony Blair, you can keep it. Let's move along now. Should we sacrifice our principles to sit with the generals and sheikhs as we have done? Using "quiet diplomacy" to advance our principles as we are reassured so often.

[carl]

David:

Maybe Tony Blair is the ideal establishment guy to bring this up. Most everybody hates him anyway so he has nothing at all to lose.

His message may be politically stupid in 2014 but it is just as much geopolitically (sic) wise and I think will become more apparently so as the years pass. The takfiri killers aren't just conservative, they are killers. Their basic religious AND political standpoint is 'you convert to Islam or we'll kill you'. They mean that. There is no quiet way to deal with people like that.

We may not like the way the Egyptian Army is handling the problem and they could probably do it and just as effectively more humanely but they are handling the problem. If they prevail it is better for us than if they do not. We may curl our lips at that but that is the way it is. It was the same thing in Algeria in the 90s. The Algerian Army won and it is a good thing they did.

This is the same argument current in the Cold War. Should we support states that are on the front line against Communism even though they do not perfectly reflect our values? Should we stick by South Korea or Taiwan even though their govs are pretty rough? We often decided to do so because they rather more closely reflected our values than did the Reds and their govs were a damn sight less rough than the Reds. It worked out to our advantage I think. It was also good because in order to influence those govs toward our view of the good, it was helpful to be buds with them. If we weren't they could tell us to go pound sand.

The ironic thing is we have such mixed emotions about helping the current Egyptian government which is trying and actually doing something about the takfiris who would kill the world, and yet at the same time we can't seem to not help the Pak Army/ISI which actively supports those same takfiri world killers.

[Dayuhan]

This is the same argument current in the Cold War. Should we support states that are on the front line against Communism even though they do not perfectly reflect our values? Should we stick by South Korea or Taiwan even though their govs are pretty rough? We often decided to do so because they rather more closely reflected our values than did the Reds and their govs were a damn sight less rough than the Reds. It worked out to our advantage I think.

In some cases yes, in some cases not so much. They weren't all Taiwan and South Korea: we also ended up harnessed to a fair number of thuggish dictators who were as corrupt and ineffective as they were brutal, and who turned out to be substantial liabilities rather than assets. These situations have to be evaluated, and regularly re-evaluated, on a case to case basis, we can't simply assume that anyone who's fighting people we don't (or claims to be fighting people we dislike) like is necessarily and automatically deserving of support.