Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister and internationally respected peacemaker, is making a speech in which he deals with the rise of Islamic extremism and our failure to tackle it. He is right (I am sure) that Islamic extremism is on the rise, though how one measures this exactly is not clear; he is right that this is something that the nations of the West would rather not face; but his prescribed remedy strikes me as utterly wrong. He has this to say, which seems right:
We have to take sides. We have to stop treating each country on the basis of whatever seems to make for the easiest life for us at any one time. We have to have an approach to the region that is coherent and sees it as a whole. And above all, we have to commit. We have to engage.
