From Draconian Observations comes Blair’s Long War Vision. You should read DO’s post and brief commentary (clipped below) on Blair’s talk in LA a short while back.
Tony Blair’s speech to the World
Affairs Council in LA is highly interesting. The speech lays out a plan of
change in doctrine for the war on terrorism: one that is already present, but
need support, in the shape of the Long War concept, and the NSPD 44 and the DoD
Directive 3000 (more on the Long
War here; and the directives
here). As such it fuses the American ambitiousness with the European
critiques. Finally, it seems to address and contain Tony
Corn’s analysis of the GWOT/Long War.
I’d be interested in how Dan at tdaxp would read Blair’s speech.
“From the above it is clear that from now on, we need a whole strategy for the Middle East. If we are faced with an arc of extremism, we need a corresponding arc of moderation and reconciliation. Each part is linked. Progress between Israel and Palestine affects Iraq. Progress in Iraq affects democracy in the region. Progress for moderate, mainstream Islam anywhere puts reactionary Islam on the defensive everywhere. But none of it happens unless in each individual part the necessary energy and commitment is displayed not fitfully, but continuously.I said at the outset that the result of this struggle had effects wider than the region itself. Plainly that applies to our own security. This global Islamist terrorism began in the Middle East. Sort the Middle East and it will inexorably decline. The read-across, for example, from the region to the Muslim communities in Europe is almost instant. ”
How can anyone not love this guy?
Blair’s emphasis, rightly, is on progress.We must perturb the system, reset the ruleset, in the Islamic part of the Gap. We must achieve this progress in Palestine, Iraq, “everywhere” in this arc.
We shouldn’t slow down this progress to preserve the stability of those regimes. Hence we abandon our doctrine of stability in the greater middle east. We shouldn’t slow down this progress because of negative feedback to us. Hence we limit that feedback to us (and redirect it to the regimes that host the source of the problem in teh first-place).
Dan,I don’t see how “corresponding arc of moderation and reconciliation” meshes with the tactic of isolating the gap. Do I miss something in your analysis?