Every once in a while, like an unwanted guest at a wedding, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair pops up to provide words of his wisdom in relation to international terrorism and how to respond to it. So it was in April when Blair made a public speech, widely reported on in the British media, to offer his latest insights. Except, Blair's interventions are beginning to play like a broken record or, in modern technological parlance, a scratched CD. This alone wouldn't be a problem, except that Blair's obsession arguably plays into the hands of al-Qaeda and similar groups by providing support for their dominant narrative since before 11 September 2001: that the west is engaged in a war against Islam. What Blair indicated in his public engagement is that radical Islam is the number one security threat to the west. Specifically, he warned that the west's top priority is to deal with "a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam's true message." By definition, this threat is bigger than the increasing dominance of China; it is bigger than global warming. Explicitly, according to Blair, it is bigger than Vladimir Putin's Russian expansions which needn't serve, he argues, as an impediment to cooperating with the Russians against radical Islam. Military intervention is clearly one of the solutions to this diagnosed problem. Blair called upon further intervention in Libya and lamented the failure of the west to intervene in the conflict in Syria. In making these pronouncements, while he could be accused of recklessness, Tony Blair certainly cannot be accused of inconsistency. In the early days in the aftermath of 9/11, he committed the United Kingdom to follow the George W. Bush administration on whatever path it would careen down, allegedly telling the American leader at one point that "You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you." That route led, of course, to the invasion of Afghanistan and then disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, a war that led directly to several hundred thousand Iraqi deaths and the displacement of millions more. The UK still awaits the final report of the Sir John Chilcot enquiry, which may finally reveal the full extent of Blair's support, while prime minister, for the neo-conservative policies of Washington. Now if there was one winner out of the Iraq war it was the government of Iran. For years, Iran had a major enemy in Saddam Hussein whose war against them led to over a million deaths. Not only did the US and UK sweep Saddam aside, but it allowed the takeover in Baghdad not just of a government dominated by the Shia majority but one with close ties to Tehran. Since leaving office, Blair has repeatedly popped up to warn about the dangers of Iran and its nuclear programme and to advocate, if necessary, military action against Tehran. Then there is the situation in Egypt. One of the few prominent westerners to publicly support Hosni Mubarak in the initial phase of the Arab Spring was Tony Blair. In 2011, before Mubarak was forced out, Blair described him as "immensely courageous and a force for good" while warning about the possibility of, as eventually happened, the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power through an election. Blair had long enjoyed a close relationship with Mubarak, even holidaying in Egypt as a guest of its authoritarian leader. His opposition to the outcome of the Egyptian election is equally troubling for it contradicts western rhetoric on seeking power through the ballot box instead of the bullet. Despite having been out of office since 2007, Tony Blair never fails to draw considerable attention while in the public sphere. The worrying thing is that he still wields influence, including through his position as a Middle East peace envoy, and that with his repeated focus on radical Islam as an existential threat to the west he inadvertently provides support to the radical Islamist grand narrative that the west is engaged in a war against Islam. It is the "clash of civilizations" thesis come to life and it is fundamentally dangerous in terms of western security since it provides credence and legitimacy to increasingly marginalized forces while ignoring the more significant problems of the 21st century.
