Challenging ideology of terrorists is key to foreign policy, says Blair

Tony Blair launched a staunch defence yesterday of the government's foreign policy, attacking critics for condemning terrorist attacks but failing to challenge the Islamist ideology which drove them.

In a wide-ranging and at times - as he admitted - controversial speech, he dismissed the argument that invading Iraq had spawned terrorism, insisting: "We must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress."

But the prime minister insisted he was not attacking Islam as a whole, describing the battle with extremists as a battle about modernity itself.

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I Gave My Opinion on This Speech Yesterday.

The crude, harsh truth is that no one can take what Blair says on foreign policy seriously, because he is responsible for the greatest foreign-policy disaster in half a century of British history.

Vision and reality