At the root of the crisis lies a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam’s true message.
Tony Blair

No, Mr. Blair, you are so focused on the sizzle that you can't see the steak.

At the root of instability in the region he describes are national systems of governance long used to governing in any way they see fit that are unable or unwilling to make the minor evolutionary adjustments of governance necessary to get into synch with newly empowered and rapidly evolving populations. That is the steak. The sizzle is those relative handful of advocates who are employing a radicalized version of Islam to motivate people to illegal political action to force those changes; and who are also willing to employ acts of terrorism to advance their organizaitonal causes.

Layered over this are systems of external foreign policies that directly affect the governance of the region as well; and those foreign systems have proven to be every bit as unwilling or unable to refine for the realities of the world we actually live in today.

It is easy to blame some small group of violent, illegal actors and the extreme message they employ - but this is about a failure of politics and policies in regard to the governance of the people writ large - not the extreme positions and actions of a few.

Tony was wrong when he was the PM, and he is still wrong today.