Remember Tony Blair? He was once — from 1997 to 2007 — the Prime Minister of the U.K., and then he subsequently founded the institutional sinecure that has supported him in grand globetrotting speech-making TED-talking Davos-attending style ever since, the modestly named Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. He’s in the news again, for telling us, as if he alone had just discovered it, about the increased threat to the world’s security of “radical Islam.” He darkly warns that this “radical Islam” – which one must never confuse with that totally different beneficent thing, “Islam” (though Blair has never explained how exactly they differ) — is “getting worse.” My, my. When did he arrive at that realization, which was obvious to everyone of sense long ago and, for some, comprehended even as early as September 11, 2001, the day conclusive evidence of the threat of “radical Islam” to the world was presented in New York?
Here’s a report on his latest words of warning: “Jihadist Threat ‘Getting Worse’, Says Former British PM Blair,” i24 News, September 7, 2021:
Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair warned on Monday that “radical Islam” remained a “first-order security threat” to the world despite two decades confronting the issue across the globe.
But in those two decades there has been no true “confronting the issue,” because people like Tony Blair have continued to insist that Islam itself was not a problem, but only its mutant version, “radical Islam,” which, however, neither he nor anyone else has successfully defined and distinguished from “Islam.” All over the Western world, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, having spent trillions of dollars to protect ourselves from “radical Islam,” we still can’t allow ourselves to declare Islam itself a cause for alarm, and to adopt policies, including a halt to Muslim immigration into the Western world, that will severely limit the presence of Muslims in our midst. If we were to return to their countries of origin those millions of Muslims now in the West who have falsely claimed to be “refugees” but all along were really economic migrants, intent on taking advantage of the generous benefits Western welfare states provide, that would further diminish that Muslim presence, and its threat to our security.
Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States, and in the wake of the Taliban retaking power in Afghanistan, Blair argued that the threat posed by jihadist groups was “getting worse.”.
He didn’t “argue” – that’s beyond Blair– but simply stated that the “threat” was “getting worse.” For this banality, much thanks.
He reiterated his long-held belief it could only be defeated by “a combination of hard and soft power” and urged world powers, including non-Western allies, to adopt a more unified approach.
Yes, how true. To defeat “it” – that threat from “radical Islam” that is “getting worse” – will require “a combination of hard and soft power.” Could anyone disagree? The questions he doesn’t answer are what matter. What kind of “hard power” does he have in mind? A war to destroy Muslim military might? A series of internecine conflicts — sectarian and ethnic — among Muslims that we do not try to prevent, but instead hope to encourage? An economic war, with the West cutting back on the purchase of oil and gas from Muslim states? An embargo on weapons to Muslim states? A refusal to admit more Muslims into the West? And what does Blair mean by “soft power”? Does he think we can persuade Muslims to accept a sanitized, innocuous version of Islam? Can we encourage Muslims to apostatize, by a massive missionary effort conducted on social media? Can we make enough Muslims so enamored of Western “decadent” culture that they will want to leave Islam? Tell us, Tony, please do, what you mean by “hard power” and “soft power,” the combination of which will defeat “radical Islam”? We need those details that you have always refrained from providing.
Islamism, both the ideology and the violence, is a first order security threat; and, unchecked, it will come to us, even if centered far from us, as 9/11 demonstrated,” he said at the Royal United Services Institute military think-tank.
“The leading powers must unite to develop an agreed strategy,” he added, noting China and Russia had an interest in countering it alongside many Muslim countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Again, banality and vagueness: “leading powers” must “unite” around “an agreed strategy.” Who would have thought otherwise? Why can’t Blair provide us with even one example of what such an “agreed strategy” would include?
Blair highlighted the radicalism pushed by Shia Iran, and Sunni groups from the Muslim Brotherhood through to Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group and Boko Haram.
He said they were “the principal cause of de-stabilization across the Middle East and beyond and today in Africa.”
He has also reiterated his criticism of US President Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan, which he condemned as dangerous and unnecessary.
The Bidenites’ “surprise” at the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan, their want of planning an orderly withdrawal, their inability even to gather all the American citizens in Afghanistan at the airport in Kabul before announcing the date of the military withdrawal – that is what can be criticized. But the withdrawal itself was correct, and ought to have been carried out long ago, just after Al-Qaeda had been driven from the country. Blair calls the American decision to pull out both “dangerous and unnecessary.” Yes, it was “dangerous” – but it would have been “dangerous” no matter when it took place. Should the Americans therefore have remained indefinitely in Afghanistan, because it would be “dangerous” to withdraw? But the withdrawal was, pace Blair, “necessary.” The Americans have been in Afghanistan for twenty years. The Taliban had not been permanently defeated. More than two trillion dollars had been spent by American taxpayers on a quixotic and failed attempt to turn Afghanistan into a functioning, Western-style democracy. It was, almost all Americans agree, long past time to go. Blair is quick to berate the Americans who want to cut their losses; he’s unconcerned with the economic and human cost the Americans would continue to pay if they didn’t withdraw. He’s got some nerve, telling us that after all we have done, we should have stayed in Afghanistan.
Blair has gone through various stages in his comprehension of Islam. He went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, beside his American ally, George W. Bush. He seemed to think that after booting out Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and deposing Saddam Hussein in Iraq, it would be possible to make both Muslim countries into Western-style democracies, that would in turn become lights unto the Muslim nations. In those heady days, Blair was convinced that the West had nothing to fear from Islam, but only from “Islamism,” something neither he nor anyone else has been able to satisfactorily define He told anyone who would listen that he carried around a copy of the Qur’an in his jacket. He repeated this claim about constantly reading the Qur’an in 2011, and then again in 2017, when he told an interviewer from The Observer that “I read the Qur’an every day. Partly to understand some of the things happening in the world, but mainly just because it is immensely instructive.”
“Immensely instructive.” Did Blair find “immensely instructive” the Qur’anic verses that tell Muslims that they are the “best of peoples” (3:110) and that non-Muslims are the “most vile of created beings”(98:6)? What about the verse (5:51) that tells Muslims not to take Christians or Jews as friends, “for they are friends only with each other”? What effect did reading those verses have on his understanding of Islam? And since he’s been reading the Qur’an for many years now, what does he make of those verses that instruct Muslims “to fight” and “to kill” and “to smite at the necks of” and “to strike terror In the hearts of” non-Muslims? That is, what has he made of such Qur’anic verses as 2:191-193, 4:89, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, and 47:4? Hasn’t it at least made him think that perhaps “Islam” and “radical Islam” have a good deal in common – that Muslims and “radical Muslims” read the same Qur’an and the same hadith, and are taught, and do believe, the same things, but it is the “radical Muslims” who are the most devout, the most ready to behave according to those Qur’anic verses, to act on their beliefs and put into deadly practice the true teachings of Islam?
mortimer says
Tony Blair has clearly evolved in his understanding of Islamism, which is ‘radical Islam’ and which is jihadism and Sharia supremacism. But he has no solution. The ‘powers’ should get together, but they will not stifle the ideology by fighting Muslims militarily.
What will cause the jihadists to stop? Not years in Gitmo or Bagram prison. Only by seeing that the Koran is a human fabrication (and not of divine origin) will the jihadists lay down their arms.
Muslims who are incarcerated spend their days learning MORE Islamic texts and memorizing how they must fight and kill infidels, rather than learning that the whole thing is bunkum invented by the caliphs as a troop motivator.
If Blair has not learned that the Koran is troop motivator, then he is a mighty slow learner.
The Koran itself is the source of the problem of Islamism.
PRCS says
There is NO such thing as “radical Islam”.
There is Islam.
Some Muslims are more devout than others.
And there is NO Qur’an “lite” for “moderate” Muslims.
There is NO such thing as “jihadism”.
There is Jihad, which is a core component of Islam.
gravenimage says
All true, PRCS. Jihadism and Sharia supremacism are just orthodox aspects of Islam itself.
TruthWFree says
Yes, it is a shame that these leaders like Blair and GW Bush did not come to the same conclusion I did long ago after 9/11/2001 that it is Islam and not some fictitious label like “radical Islam” that is the cause of all the Islamic Jihad around the world. One would think that they would have well instructed advisors they could give an ear to in order to learn about the hate filled religion of Islam. When I read Quran Sura 9-5, “slay the pagans with every stratagem of war”, I envision airplanes flying into buildings. Blair may have woken a bit from his slumber, but he has not grasped the reality yet that it is Islam and not “radical Islam” that is the threat. He could have listened to Turkey’s Erdogan years ago when he said “Islam is Islam”. Many are blinded about the TRUTH of Satan’s religion.
Raja says
When will the western leaders ever learn? They have the time and money to lavish on barbarians and naturalized barbarians thanks to islam. We have had leaders say: Islam is the problem, but the bus never moves forward.
After all the billions spent, the leaders cannot conclude: Muslims despise us (only Trump had the guts to say that publicly) or that Muslims don’t ever want democracy.
The western leaders have been on different projects with ME for ages and have missed the target awfully, as the “rocket” was NEVER set to precision, to begin with.
Wellington says
Had present Western leaders (over the past few decades or so) known what Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell both knew a century ago about Islam, trillions of dollars could have been spared, many lives saved, both civilian and military, and the West would not now be faced with millions of Muslim immigrants who want to make the West part of the dar al-Islam.
This refusal to learn by people like Blair and Bush 43 is unforgiveable. The damage people in charge in the West have done to the West is enormous and may be irreversible. Damn them.
Raja says
Wellington,
Thanks for your reply. Your analysis is spot on and grimy true. Yes, the price paid for this experimentation by the West might turn out to be humongous and the consequences irreparable.
e.g: If Sarah of Abraham fame, had not done the stupid thing, we wouldn’t be struggling with Palis, Pakis and other anti-human nations. You might know much more than me about price and consequences of every wrongs in History.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Hello, Raja. I do not understand your statement “If Sarah of Abraham fame, had not done the stupid thing, we wouldn’t be struggling with Palis, Pakis and other anti-human nations.”
Who is Sarah? Who is Abraham, and what is he famous for? What is “the stupid thing” that Sarah did? And how is this related to Pakistanis?
Wellington says
Mark Spahn: Raja was correctly referencing Sarah, the wife of Abraham, since she seemed barren and had not yet produced a child, giving permission to her husband to have sex with her slave servant, Hagar, so he could have a son. This “occurred” (how’s this for a euphemism?) and Hagar gave birth to Ismael, from whom Arabs claim descent.
Later, Sarah did conceive herself and bore Abraham a son, Isaac, from whom Jews claim descent. Raja’s point was that Sarah made a mistake giving permission to her husband, Abraham, to have sex with her slave servant, Hagar, who may or may not have become Abraham’s second wife. From Ismael, so the story goes, came the Arabs and from the Arabs the monstrosity which is Islam. Hence, Sarah, making a mistake, but whether Sarah (or Abraham or Isaac or Ishmael) existed at all is itself open to speculation. Perhaps all are composite figures, though perhaps not. Such is the way of things when you’re dealing with some 4,000 years ago and there were no video cameras or audio equipment around.
It’s all lost in time, as so much religious literature is, but still affects matters to this very day. As so much religious literature does. Often times, enormously so and even tragically so.
Wellington says
Thank you for your reply, Raja. Best to you and yours.
PMK says
“Radical Islam” has threatened the West for centuries. The first time I noticed was the Iranian Revolution and the seizure of the US embassy. Our leaders said something to the effect that it was not true Islam. The Shia aren’t real Muslims. The Saudis are conservative and they are our friends, etc.
Then, after the First Gulf War, the Twin Towers were bombed in February, 1993. We were lucky then because their plan was to knock one tower into the other but either the truck was parked in the wrong place or the towers were just too well constructed. “Only” six people died. At midday, we could have had a minimum of ten thousand casualties if their plan had succeeded. Bill Clinton decided it was a ‘criminal’ matter.
Then our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed. A yawn from Clinton.
Then the attack on the USS Cole. Another yawn.
Clinton once said he regretted that he never had an attack on his watch that would have necessitated military action. He had a minimum of three.
Even after 9/11, we were told it was ‘a tiny minority of extremists’, that most Muslims were peaceful.
Extremists’ actions need an extreme response: American leaders need to format a new MAD.
Mecca’s Assured Destruction. Muslims can have jihad or they can have Mecca. They can’t have both.
Donovan Nuera says
why wait, destroy Mecca and Medina (and garish chintzy Big Ben bell tower ripoff at the hotel overlooking the Black Kube) now. … and the Royal palace in Riyadh.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
They’ve commercialized the holy sacred Kaaba neighborhood?! Whoo that’s too bad, the Saudis shoulda had some zoning restrictions on that one. But it must be nice to walk from your hotel, cross the street, and go look at the meteor from God.
Everytime I go to the airport I yell Praise Allah! My girlfriend hates it when I do that. When I go to see the Kaaba, I’m gonna yell Praise Allah! again, and without apology. Allahu Akbar.
Check Burry says
Yesterdays man , 10 years behind folk on here, creeping to bush.
Jim says
People meet nice people from Muslim countries and think that Islam is nice, and only extremism is bad. But of course, the Koran and holy scriptures of Islam preach the lessons that are realized by Muslim jihadists. So, one cannot simply excuse good Islam because there are good Muslims. The good Muslims probably never read the Koran and do not know what it says.
Michael Copeland says
The good muslims, indeed, do not read the Koran. Most of them do not have Arabic as their language. When young, they are taught, with blows from a stick, to RECITE it, and are discouraged, again with blows, from asking questions. They depend on their imams to tell them.
Wellington says
In other words, such “good Muslims” are completely useless where any preservation of freedom and common sense are concerned.
PRCS says
Sebastian Gorka remarkin about Islamic State “fighters” once (maybe many times) referred to our Sowdi pals as “the good Muslims”.
I emailed him, stating, that good Muslims comply with Qur’an and sunnah (amputations and all).
He responded that we have a different understanding of good.
Another guy who could have done his homework–but didn’t–and probably still hasn’t.
Infidel says
PRCS
Five years ago, you’d have been right. But there’s a world of difference b’w MbS and his predecessors. His predecessors just paid lip service to us, but kept the hate education going. Whereas MbS has largely defanged the Ministry of Virtue and Vice, ended the demonization of Jews in islamic teaching and has included teaching other religions like Buddhism and Hinduism that are not defamed in the quran. Yeah, it’s fine to say that it doesn’t go far enough, but given the population we’re discussing – the keepers of Mecca & Medina – it’s an amazing achievement. Saudi Arabia is already a more tolerant country than most muslim countries: previously, it was one of the least tolerant
Yeah, they still have to get to a point where they can delink the quran from being their constitution, but so far, what they’ve done has been impressive
Wellington says
For the record, Infidel, and let me note the date, 9/10/21, the eve of the 20th “anniversary” of 9/11, I think you too optimistic about MBS.
No Muslim should ever be trusted because they either know what Islam is really about or they don’t know what Islam is really about. Reforming Islam is as efficacious and sapient as reforming Marxism or Nazism. The only thing to do with all three is discard them—and marginalize these bastard ideologies until they are discarded.
For the record.
gravenimage says
Sad to hear about this from Gorka, PRCS. He is generally pretty savvy about Islam.
And Infidel, I’m afraid I have to agree with Wellington–Saudi Arabia is still one of the most oppressive Jihad hell holes on earth. I think the idea that MbS is reforming Islam–or indeed ever intends to–is *far* too oprtimistic.
His very claim that the Qur’an and Sunna can be “inclusive” indicate that he is either delusional or spouting Taqiyya.
Infidel says
Graven & Wellington
I never said anything about reforming islam! I was talking about reforming Saudi Arabia, and while I’m still in a wait-and-see mode, they have been making what would normally be unbelievable moves. On August 31st, they passed a new law banning dawa among non-muslims
https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/saudi-arabia-no-islamic-dawa-activity-without-permission-1.81927862
All that said, I’m still supportive of the redacted sections of the 9/11 report being opened up fully, and I’m all for the Saudis being held financially accountable for whatever role they had for that day. My only point is that just as we should have our eyes wide open for what jihadist and dhimmi moves are happening throughout the world, we shouldn’t ignore the positive trends either. Remaining of course open to the possibility that that can be reversed any time
Lion heart says
Jim : as a Canadian Christian guy myself originally from Iraq, I wanna say that I call all the nice Muslims out there I call them nice “ UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE “ meaning until they take Islam seriously and put its teachings into practice, only then they will be no longer noice and Iraqi Christians experience with Muslims after the fall of Saddam’s bloody regime is the most obvious example of that where even many longtime Muslim neighbours to Christians in Iraq have stabbed the Christians in the back after they had taken Islam seriously and after they had seen security breach and power vacuum that that evil Baathist Saddam’s regime left . So you’re right ! Nice Muslims are nice because they don’t know the evil teachings of Islam especially towards nonMuslims and in particular towards Christians & Jews ! and as an Ex-Muslim guy called Hamed Abdel Samar who is an Egyptian-born German writer and analyst said once in Arabic and I translate as follows “ In every single moderate Muslim out there , there is a “ mini” ISIS member inside them who want to see Islamic law ( sharia ) to be imposed everywhere in the world but there are shy to say if publicly “ .
Hindu American says
“The Bidenites”. Love this moniker! Robert, save this domain name. It is available.
About Tony Blair’s change of “opinion’. This is to be expected. Politicians have multiple faces – in power, out of power, running for power, pining for power, no longer interested in power….pick one.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
What is this radical Islam? The normative Islam is tough enough, best known for its mass murder of 3,000 twenty years ago tomorrow. That Islam was more than we could handle, not that we tried. But if Tony has found an Islam that is somehow even more dangerous, we’re in trouble, and may well need Davos-attending world experts to keep us alive against this new, radical, iteration.
Michael Copeland says
“Unfortunately we seem blind”, said Tony Blair in his speech at Bloomberg. Yes, Mr Blair: it is what happens to us when we have had the wool pulled over our eyes.
Blair has said all these:
“This is a war fought by extremists who pervert the true faith of Islam.”
“There is not a problem with Islam… there is no doubt about its true and peaceful nature.”
“…perversion of Islam is the source of a lot of the problems in the Middle East.”
Showing how well-trained he is by the deception, Mr Blair explains,
“At the root of the crisis lies a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam’s true message.”
Here we go: “radicalised … politicised … distorts and warps”. No, Mr. Blair, Islam is political: it is political to the ROOT (Latin radix) of all its teachings, its radical doctrines, its core. Islam is “an ideological political movement”, Anjem Choudary explained to the BBC (Newsnight, January 2010). Nothing has been distorted, nothing warped. Islam is emphatically NOT limited to private conscience. Its ‘true message’ is total submission to control by coercion.
Wellington says
Prediction, Michael: Highly likely Blair will go to his grave (ditto for Bush 43) never realizing what a monumental mistake he made by making the faux distinction between Islam and radical Islam.
If you’re as old as Blair and Bush 43 are, and you still don’t realize the monumental error you made when leading a nation, chances are extremely high you never will. Sundry reasons exist for this, the two at the top is a determination to remain perpetually ignorant and an innate stubbornness to admit you were wrong in the first place on a most consequential issue.
The Age of Nonsense marches on. You bet it is.
PRCS says
Islam has been a brutal, totalitarian theocracy from its inception.
Unlike the time period in which it was concocted, politicians, so-called journalists, military leaders, and the general Western public have access to pretty much all the world’s knowledge at their fingertips.
It is both inexcusable and unforgivable that so many still refuse to believe that Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority of “extremists”.
PRCS says
still believe
gravenimage says
Good exchange.
tim gallagher says
I don’t know whether to believe anything that people like Blair, and most other politicians, say when they are talking about islam. I think that some of these politicians must have woken up to islam years ago, because otherwise they are extraordinarily dumb and some of the slowest learners in human history, but, for whatever the reason, they simply lie and bullshit on about how islam is mostly OK, but it is only a small section of “radical” types that are a problem. I keep thinking, can these clowns really be this dumb? So many seem to be wishy washy fence sitters when they talk about islam.
gravenimage says
Tony Blair Is Now Worried About ‘Radical Islam’
…………
Sadly the witless Tony Blair is far from the worst leader the UK has had since 9/11.
Whitespace says
The Pakistani PM (if memory serves) more recently echoed Erdogan saying,
“There is no ‘Radical Islam’, there is only Islam.”
It is incredible that our figureheads have never taken the time to familiarize themselves with Islam to the extent which would take a few weeks with the occidental scholarship Bill Warner or the strategic intellectuals like Robert Spencer or Stephen Coughlin. Blair is an intelligent man, he has no excuse.
Even a figurehead has a deeper responsibility. If we cannot blame figureheads for government policy (that’s fair) we can blame them for their ignorance. They were too busy purveying the dialectic pushed by influence operations from islamic groups than to inform themselves of basic facts.
A nobody like me knows more about the core and recurrent doctrines. A mid-wit like me can draw the connections between current events and history. Even nominal world leaders should have read everything down to the moderately authoritative Hadith in the past 20 years. They give absolutely no evidence to having that degree of curiosity.
PRCS says
“It is incredible that our figureheads have never taken the time to familiarize themselves with Islam to the extent which would take a few weeks with the occidental scholarship Bill Warner or the strategic intellectuals like Robert Spencer or Stephen Coughlin. Blair is an intelligent man, he has no excuse.”
Given that his “story” has changed, who knows what he might say today or tomorrow.
He said (a) in a 2011 print article that he “reads the Holy Qur’an everyday” (calling it beautiful) and (b) in a 2015 video refers to “the perversion of Islam”.
Well, if he’d really read “he Big Book”, he’d know the “faith” has not been prevented by “extremists”.
[https://tribune.com.pk/story/188297/i-read-the-holy-quran-everyday-former-british-pm-tony-blair
PRCS says
And the YouTube URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGbHawXpNIs
James Lincoln says
Whitespace,
Very respectfully disagree:
You are not a “nobody” or a mid-wit; you understand islam.
James Lincoln says
So, according to the feature article:
“Tony Blair Is Now Worried About ‘Radical Islam’”
Which means that he is not worried about “plain-vanilla” islam.
Not even a little…