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Shia Iran scares Tony Blair
News Reports:
[ UK warns about Iran, and urges world leaders to take on Tehran. Britian calls for a new coalition of West and the Sunni Arabs to prevent the rise of Iranian power.]
Blair warns of 'arc of extremism' - BBC
The 'arc of extremism' - Telegraph
Arc of extremism - Times
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BBC - 2 August 2006
BLAIR WARNS OF 'ARC OF EXTREMISM'
Tony Blair has warned that an "arc of extremism" is stretching across the Middle East and said "an alliance of moderation" was needed to defeat it.
Mr Blair also told the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles that Syria and Iran had to stop supporting terrorism or they would "be confronted".
His speech was planned some weeks ago but he said the Lebanon crisis had "brought it into sharp relief".
He said there was now a war "of a completely unconventional kind".
The prime minister said: "There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Middle East and touching countries far outside that region."
He said in Iraq, Syria had allowed al-Qaeda operatives to "cross the border" while Iran had supported extremist Shia.
"The purpose of the terrorism in Iraq is absolutely simple - carnage, causing sectarian hatred, leading to civil war," he said.
'Export of instability'
Mr Blair added: "We need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: come in to the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us; or be confronted.
"Their support of terrorism, their deliberate export of instability, their desire to see wrecked the democratic prospect in Iraq, is utterly unjustifiable, dangerous and wrong.
"If they keep raising the stakes, they will find they have miscalculated."
Mr Blair also spoke about the conflict between Israel and Lebanon and said that the "purpose of the provocation" that began it "was clear".
"It was to create chaos, division and bloodshed, to provoke retaliation by Israel that would lead to Arab and Muslim opinion being inflamed, not against those who started the aggression but against those who responded to it," he said.
However, he said it was still possible to come out of the crisis "with a better long-term prospect for the cause of moderation in the Middle East succeeding".
He added: "But it would be absurd not to face up to the immediate damage to that cause which has been done."
Mr Blair said all would be done to try to halt the hostilities in the conflict.
"But once that has happened we must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us," he said.
'Alliance of moderation'
Mr Blair spoke of how he believed "global extremism" should be tackled.
"To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian, Arab and Western, wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony.
"We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world."
He said this "unconventional" war must be won through these values.
"This war can't be won in a conventional way, it can only be won by showing that our values are stronger, better and more just, more fair than the alternatives," he said.
'Values change'
However, he said this required a dramatic change in strategy.
The prime minister told his 2,000-strong audience there was now an "elemental struggle" about values that was set to shape the world's future.
He said it was a part of struggle between what he called reactionary Islam and moderate mainstream Islam.
And in Iraq and Afghanistan he said "the banner was not actually regime change it was values change".
"What we have done therefore in intervening in this way, is probably far more momentous than we appreciated at the time," he said
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TELEGRAPH - 17 Jul 2006
THE 'ARC OF EXTREMISM'
Hizbollah
"The Party of God", drawing support from Lebanon's poor Shias, emerged after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It pioneered the use of suicide bombings to attack the US embassy, the US Marines, French and Israeli troops, and took several westerners hostage in the 1980s. It drove Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000. It won 23 out of 128 seats in the Lebanese election of 2005 and has two cabinet ministers.
Hamas
Founded in the Gaza Strip at the outset of the 1987 Palestinian uprising against Israel. It is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt. The movement at first concentrated on social works but turned to "resistance" and led the fight against Israel in the second uprising of 2000. Hamas adopted suicide bombings in 1994 and claimed its actions forced Israel to withdraw from Gaza unilaterally last year. It won last January's parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, prompting Israel and western donors sharply to cut back aid until it recognises Israel, gives up violence and accepts past peace agreements.
Syria
Traditionally the most ardent Arab opponent of Israel, Syria has long provided sanctuary for the leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian factions. Its rivalry with Iraq drove it into an alliance with Iran in the 1980s. This has been strengthened since the Iraq war in 2003. Its troops entered Lebanon in 1976, at first supporting Christian factions in the civil war and then their opponents. Damascus was given free rein by the US to assert control in return for support in the Gulf War. It is accused of helping Sunni insurgents in Iraq.
Iran
Virulently anti-western since the 1979 Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah. Its Revolutionary Guards helped create Hizbollah and provide arms and funds to the group. Iran sponsors Palestinian extremist factions. It tacitly co-operated with the West in overthrowing the Taliban and stood back in the US-led invasion of Iraq. It has close links to many of Iraq's leaders, but Iranian bomb expertise has made its way to both Sunni and Shia insurgents. It has pushed ahead with uranium enrichment, which the West believes is intended to make nuclear bombs.
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The Times - 5 August 2006
ARC OF EXTREMISM
The shifting alliances and rivalries within fanatical Islam
Tony Blair’s decision to defer his holidays is a matter more of symbolism than substance. The Prime Minister is perfectly capable of making telephone calls from the beach but the picture of him there while conflict in Lebanon and Israel rages may not have been a comfortable one. Mr Blair is right to stay put until it becomes clear whether and when a UN resolution on this Middle East crisis is likely to be adopted.
There is, nonetheless, little chance of the politics of this region returning precisely to what Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, described as the “status quo ante”. There is, as Mr Blair put it in Los Angeles this week, an “arc of extremism” emerging across the Middle East. How to counter it and to promote, in the Prime Minister’s words, an alternative “arc of moderation” will be the principal question in foreign policy long after Mr Blair has disappeared from No 10. And, at first sight at least, it appears that the confrontation in and around Lebanon has reinforced and emboldened the leadership of the arc of extremism.
The divisions between fanatics of Sunni and Shia Islam seem to have been partially set aside in the present situation. While most outsiders might regard Hamas, Hezbollah or al-Qaeda as local variations on a similar theme, the truth is different. Al-Qaeda is a militantly Sunni sect dedicated to restoring the character and the boundaries of the Caliphate of 500 years ago. Hamas, although Sunni and dogmatic, has been shaped by the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and has a strong nationalist streak to it. Hezbollah, by contrast, is zealously Shia in the model of its major sponsor, Iran, and thus is heretical in the eyes of Sunni opinion.
This helps to explain why the original response of governments and religious leaders in Egypt, Jordan and, especially, Saudi Arabia to events in Lebanon was muted. There may be no love lost for Israel there, but the Jewish state does not represent the challenge to majority Islam that the Shia bid for political and spiritual leadership constitutes. Out on the Arab street, though, Hezbollah propaganda has been effective, with every misguided (in both senses of that term) Israeli bomb being exploited. Further death and damage of the type witnessed yesterday in Lebanon will surely boost Hezbollah and might derail the diplomatic initiative.
Shia and Sunni terrorist groups cannot, however, agree on a permanant alliance while their militias are slaughtering each other in parts of Iraq, notably in Baghdad. As the Shia-led coalition administration there assumes military control of further provinces, it will be harder for Sunnis to portray its members as allies of the United States rather than fellow Muslims. Hezbollah may be gaining a form of credit in Lebanon and beyond for being capable of firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns but the mercifully modest casualties it is inflicting suggest that it is far better at launching missiles than at targeting them accurately. In but a few weeks’ time, Hezbollah’s weaknesses may be apparent.
There is still a risk that the dictum of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” may take hold, despite the well-established trend for conflict within radical Islam. If that “unity” takes root, the task of supporting moderates who have benefited from the splits in the extremist camps will become harder. What is truly a battle within Islam will be disguised as what it is not, a contest between all Muslims and the democracies. Mr Blair will have much to ponder when finally he begins his holiday.
--
The Times - August 5, 2006
Arc of extremism
The shifting alliances and rivalries within fanatical Islam
Tony Blair’s decision to defer his holidays is a matter more of symbolism than substance. The Prime Minister is perfectly capable of making telephone calls from the beach but the picture of him there while conflict in Lebanon and Israel rages may not have been a comfortable one. Mr Blair is right to stay put until it becomes clear whether and when a UN resolution on this Middle East crisis is likely to be adopted.
There is, nonetheless, little chance of the politics of this region returning precisely to what Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, described as the “status quo ante”. There is, as Mr Blair put it in Los Angeles this week, an “arc of extremism” emerging across the Middle East. How to counter it and to promote, in the Prime Minister’s words, an alternative “arc of moderation” will be the principal question in foreign policy long after Mr Blair has disappeared from No 10. And, at first sight at least, it appears that the confrontation in and around Lebanon has reinforced and emboldened the leadership of the arc of extremism.
The divisions between fanatics of Sunni and Shia Islam seem to have been partially set aside in the present situation. While most outsiders might regard Hamas, Hezbollah or al-Qaeda as local variations on a similar theme, the truth is different. Al-Qaeda is a militantly Sunni sect dedicated to restoring the character and the boundaries of the Caliphate of 500 years ago. Hamas, although Sunni and dogmatic, has been shaped by the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and has a strong nationalist streak to it. Hezbollah, by contrast, is zealously Shia in the model of its major sponsor, Iran, and thus is heretical in the eyes of Sunni opinion.
This helps to explain why the original response of governments and religious leaders in Egypt, Jordan and, especially, Saudi Arabia to events in Lebanon was muted. There may be no love lost for Israel there, but the Jewish state does not represent the challenge to majority Islam that the Shia bid for political and spiritual leadership constitutes. Out on the Arab street, though, Hezbollah propaganda has been effective, with every misguided (in both senses of that term) Israeli bomb being exploited. Further death and damage of the type witnessed yesterday in Lebanon will surely boost Hezbollah and might derail the diplomatic initiative.
Shia and Sunni terrorist groups cannot, however, agree on a permanant alliance while their militias are slaughtering each other in parts of Iraq, notably in Baghdad. As the Shia-led coalition administration there assumes military control of further provinces, it will be harder for Sunnis to portray its members as allies of the United States rather than fellow Muslims. Hezbollah may be gaining a form of credit in Lebanon and beyond for being capable of firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli towns but the mercifully modest casualties it is inflicting suggest that it is far better at launching missiles than at targeting them accurately. In but a few weeks’ time, Hezbollah’s weaknesses may be apparent.
There is still a risk that the dictum of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” may take hold, despite the well-established trend for conflict within radical Islam. If that “unity” takes root, the task of supporting moderates who have benefited from the splits in the extremist camps will become harder. What is truly a battle within Islam will be disguised as what it is not, a contest between all Muslims and the democracies. Mr Blair will have much to ponder when finally he begins his holiday.
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