Blair calls for Middle East 'alliance of moderation'

So Blair is now in the Middle East. Today he plans to deliver his message. He will say:

Tony Blair will today call on countries in the Middle East to form an "alliance of moderation" to take on Iran as part of a "monumental struggle" between democracy and extremism.

In a speech in Dubai, the Prime Minister will say that extremists motivated by a "warped and wrong-headed" interpretation of Islam pose a threat not only to America and its allies, but to moderate people across the region.

He will appeal to moderate countries to mobilise against extremists in "the struggle of the early 21st century". He will warn: "It is not too late, but it is urgent."

"We must recognise the strategic threat the government of Iran poses - not its people, not possibly all of its ruling elements but those presently in charge of its policy. They seek to pin us back in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Palestine."

This is the PM being delusional on a grand scale. He's actually employing that right wing American tactic of solving our problems by identifying more enemies.

Let's leave aside the fact that Iran's new found power in the region only came to be because Bush and Blair reversed decades of western policy - where we used to hope that Iraq and Iran would manoeuvre each other into stalemate - and invaded Iraq removing Iran's main rival and establishing them as a new superpower in the region without Iran having to fire a single shot.

Blair is here setting out his vision of the world, a vision that splits the world into democracies and extremists that oppose democracies.

The democracy in Palestine elected a leadership that is opposed by Blair and Bush, and they objected to it on such a scale that they have been starving the Palestinian people ever since they made their democratic choice. Is not Bush and Blair's opposition to democracy "extremism"?

Likewise, Bush and Blair raised no objection when the democratically elected government of Lebanon was being bombed back twenty years by the Israelis. An action that the entire world, with the notable exception of Bush and Blair, found repugnant. Was Bush and Blair's support for this action not "extremism"?

What's most notable about Blair's visit to the Middle East is his reliance on such vague sloganeering. There is no plan. There is no grand vision.

Indeed, as the US plan to ramp up the pressure on Iran by imposing a naval build up off their shores, we are left with the distinct impression that the US and UK are merely searching for other people to blame for their own debacle.

After all, none of us seriously believes that the US or UK is going to invade Iran, so any naval build up is simply the politics of useless gesturing. Likewise, Blair's calls for neighbouring countries to oppose Iran is simply playing to the gallery.

We must never forget what we were promised. A new democratic Iraq that would serve as an example to the region and lead to a domino effect where democracy would flood into Iraq's neighbouring states.

Of course, none of this has happened.

So Blair, like Bush with his proposed naval build up, is left - as Shakespeare would say - "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Blair is simply playing a blame game, trying to make Iran the reason for all the region's ills. I have no doubt that Iran has influence in each of the country's that Blair named; however, the real reason that we find ourselves where we do in the Middle East starts with Bush and Blair's insane invasion of Iraq and the consequences of that madness.

And what's more frightening is to consider that, by flailing about in the way that Bush and Blair are doing, what they are really saying is that they have no idea how to get us out of this mess.

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tag: Blair, Iraq war, US foreign policy, Bush, "Stay the course", Iran, Ahmadinejad