Blair Demands More R2P Wars in the Name of Fighting Radical Islam

Sept. 6, 2021 (EIRNS)—Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, increasingly desperate to defend the British Empire and his “responsibility to protect,” or its “R2P” doctrine, as it is known, delivered a psychotic speech to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) today in which he demanded more military interventions and more “nation-building” occupations despite the manifest failure of these policies in Afghanistan. He claimed that the West still faces a threat of 9/11-style attacks, but in order to make the threat even more frightening, Blair claimed that the threat now includes bioterrorism.

Blair, who the Guardian points out was then prime minister and supported military interventions in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), insisted the terrorist threat remained a first order issue. He complained that “the pressure of short-term political imperatives is giving both allies and opponents of liberal open societies the belief that ‘our time is over.’ ” He said he found it deeply “depressing” to hear Western opinion claim “that we are foolish in believing that Western notions of liberal democracy and freedom are exportable or will ever take root except in the somewhat decadent terrain of Western society.”

Blair insisted that

“despite the decline in terrorist attacks, 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. Covid-19 has taught us about deadly pathogens. Bio-terror possibilities may seem like the realm of science fiction; but we would be wise now to prepare for their potential use by non-state actors.”

Blair suggested radical Islamism could not be confronted solely by drone strikes, surveillance and special forces. In a direct challenge to President Biden, who said last week that the era of remaking nations by military forces is over, Blair countered that “nation-making” must be a tool in the armory, and that a mix of hard and soft power may still be required. He admitted that in America there is “now an overwhelming political constraint on military interventions” but treated it as a challenge for Britain and NATO. He argued that

“the loss of the will to fight, combined with an inability to think strategically represents a real self-imposed threat. If the enemy we’re fighting knows that the more casualties they inflict, the more our political will to fight erodes, then the incentive structure is plain.... For me, one of the most alarming developments of recent times has been the sense that the West lacks the capacity to formulate strategy. That its short-term political imperatives have squeezed the space for long-term thinking,” Blair said. “It is this sense more than anything else which gives our allies anxiety and our opponents a belief our time is over.”

What Blair refuses to accept is that the time for the British Empire, which he serves so loyally, is over.