In striking contrast to the silence and inarticulacy by the president, prime minister Tony Blair led the way – once again – over the weekend in explaining why what is happening in Iraq is so crucial, and why keeping our nerve is so vital:
Of course [the terrorists] use Iraq. It is vital to them. As each attack brings about American attempts to restore order, so they then characterise it as American brutality. As each piece of chaos menaces the very path toward peace and democracy along which most Iraqis want to travel, they use it to try to make the coalition lose heart, and bring about the retreat that is the fanatics’ victory.
They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find.
He’s been listening to the BBC and reading the Guardian. Look, I do not blame those who claim they opposed the war and so feel no reason to come up with proposals today to help us win this particular, crucial battle. But you can still appeal to their better side, to make the case that, regardless of how we got here, we still have an absolutely critical obligation to see it through. That’s why I’m waiting to see what John Kerry has to say. Forget every campaign ad. How he reacts to this current crisis is the single thing to keep in mind in considering him as the next president. Is he going to play partisan games? Or is he going to rise to the occasion, present himself as an alternative war leader and not someone who will find a way to delude Americans that they are not at war?
ON THE IRAQI MIDDLE: Blair also homes in on the silent majority in Iraq, who are watching these events with trepidation:
People in the West ask: why don’t they speak up, these standard-bearers of the new Iraq? Why don’t the Shia clerics denounce al-Sadr more strongly? I understand why the question is asked. But the answer is simple: they are worried. They remember 1991, when the West left them to their fate. They know their own street, unused to democratic debate, rife with every rumour, and know its volatility. They read the Western papers and hear its media. And they ask, as the terrorists do: have we the stomach to see it through?
I believe we do. And the rest of the world must hope that we do. None of this is to say we do not have to learn and listen. There is an agenda that could unite the majority of the world. It would be about pursuing terrorism and rogue states on the one hand and actively remedying the causes around which they flourish on the other: the Palestinian issue; poverty and development; democracy in the Middle East; dialogue between main religions.
There’s the synthesis that we need. The question this year is: which candidate can best provide it?
The Dish 