Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today.
BBC News
3 September 2010
He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.
Mr Blair said radical Islamists believed that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified – including the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Mr Blair, who led Britain into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, denied that his own policies had fuelled radicalism.
Asked about the argument that Chechens, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans were resisting foreign occupation, he said Western policies were designed to confront radical Islamists because they were “regressive, wicked and backward-looking”.
The aim of al-Qaeda in Iraq was “not to get American troops out of Baghdad [but] to destabilise a government the people of Iraq have voted for”, he told the BBC’s Owen Bennett Jones in a World Service interview…
…Mr Blair said he agonised over how to respond to radical Islam and still had doubts that he was right.
These are really difficult issues, he said, but added: “This extremism is so deep that in the end they have to know that they’re facing a stronger will than theirs.”…
The complete article is at BBC News.
H/T Cubachi, “Tony Blair on Islam: It’s not just the extremism, it’s also the ideology” She also has video of Blair speaking with Charlie Rose on this topic.
