'What Is The Sense Of Grievance?

Question: Mr Prime Minister, can Britain take the lead in speaking to Iran and Syria directly?

Tony Blair: You know the thing that always surprises me about this is that people talk about this issue of engagement with Iran and Syria as if there was some doubt about what we were saying, or where we stood, or maybe the message hadn't been clear enough. Actually the message is absolutely clear, the message is if you stop supporting terrorism, if you stop trying to acquire nuclear weapons and breach your international obligations then we are willing to have a partnership with you, but if you export terrorism around the region and destabilise democracy in Iraq, we will confront you. Now I know there are all sorts of people who engage, and of course we do, we send messages the whole time to both governments, but I am afraid I have come to the conclusion that this is not an issue of communication, it is not that people can't read our handwriting, it is actually that they lack the will to do what they need to do and we need to make sure they have that will.

Question: What is the United Nations capable of, and what is it not? Can all it do is pass meaningless resolutions?

Tony Blair: Actually I would say to you that I think the United Nations can, in certain circumstances, be absolutely essential to solving the world's problems, and there are situations that have arisen in which the UnitedNations has come together and made a real difference, and indeed some of the things that we were talking about earlier in relation to some of the disputes in Africa and so on indicate that very, very clearly too. But there are two things that need to happen. The first is that we need to reform the institutions of the United Nations thoroughly because they are not as they should be; and the second thing is you can make any amount of institutional change, but the key thing is whether there is the right political alliance at the heart of the Security Council of the United Nations.

Now I think there is a case incidentally for broadening the Security Council and I favour that, but in a way whatever institutional framework you have, the basic point is we have to have political agreement between the leading powers. And that is why I say in particular I think the transatlantic alliance is really, really important. Europe and America, whatever their differences from time to time, they have the values system in common and they should be proud of their alliance and we should make sure that we use that as a basis for trying to engineer the right type of political alliance within the UN Security Council. So look, if the UN didn't exist we would be inventing it, that is for sure, at least some people would, but I think it could be so much more effective but it needs reform, it needs leadership and it needs the right political alliance to motivate it.

Question: In what ways does our passion for western democracy get in the way of resolving global or regional conflicts?

Tony Blair: Well that is a very interesting question and a very good question. You see I have come to the conclusion, and I really confess to you I have changed my view of this, that actually there are no stable relationships in the long term unless there is progress towards democracy and freedom, that in other words the idea that countries that are governed by either secular or religious dictatorships provide a solid basis for progress, I think is just wrong. And the interesting thing about Iraq and Afghanistan, and this was the fascinating thing, is that so many people told us that you just don't understand it, people in Iraq aren't interested in democracy. The turnout in Iraq, despite people being threatened and in some cases killed on the way to the polls, was higher than the last Presidential election or the last general election in Britain. So people do care about this and democracies by and large don't fight each other. So I actually think in the end, yes, short term sometimes the passion for democracy can be difficult because there are so many vested interests that don't want it. Long term I have come to the conclusion that actually it is only through the spread of liberty, and democracy, and the rule of law and basic respect for human rights that we will get peace and security.

Question: Should NATO be used in Lebanon, as it is in Afghanistan and Bosnia?

Tony Blair: I think it depends on what is most helpful for the situation there, because we will need both the support of the government of Israel and the government of Lebanon for the force to operate. And I think at this point in time it is not possible to be clear about it, although I would say to you that the majority of people probably would say that NATO shouldn't be involved. But whatever force is involved it has to have the capacity of making sure that the original reason for the conflict, which were the activities in breach of the United Nations resolutions down in the south of Lebanon by Hezbollah are curtailed, because unless the government of Lebanon is given proper authority over the whole of Lebanon this will erupt again. And in my view the purpose of any multi-national force has got to be able to provide a bridge between the position for the government of Lebanon now, and the position we need to get to, which is not a permanent multinational force on the ground, but is a Lebanese democracy that is capable of having its writ run in every single part of the country without armed militias taking over parts of the country and running them in the way that they want.

And that is why in Lebanon what is important is to support Lebanese democracy. They have done amazing things in that country, it is why it is so tragic what has been brought about, but the only way, whether it is NATO or anybody else, we are going to get an effective multinational force there is if it has at its heart one principle, which is that our purpose is to make sure that when the Lebanese people vote in their government in a democracy, they do so without outside interference from Syria or anyone else, and without inside interference by well armed militia.

Question: To many Americans there seems to be a latent and growing anti-Semitism in Europe. How can this be stopped?

Tony Blair: I think that there are really two parts to this. I think there are people who are anti-Semitic in Europe and there has been a growing rise of anti-Semitic attacks which are appalling and terrible in different parts of Europe. But I think there is another strain of opinion, and this is the reason I devoted some of my speech to doing this, that just doesn't see it from Israel's point of view at all, I mean just doesn't understand what it is like to be a country surrounded by a lot of people who basically want to deny your right to exist, and in a way I think that is part of the problem. And I also think it then gets run in with the issue to do with anti-Americanism because of America's support for Israel. And again I said this in a speech I made a couple of months ago, the only way you ever confront this is confronting the basic ideas.

What I said in that speech, let me try and explain this, a lot of what happens in the western debate, in the European debate very specifically, but also in other countries too, less so in America but still in parts I guess in the American system, is that everybody abhors the terrorist method, people don't get up and support terrorism but they kind of buy half way into some of the ideas that they are putting forward in the sense that they say yes well you do have a real sense of grievance against America and its allies, but you shouldn't blow people up in pursuit of it. And my point the whole way through is we are never going to defeat this until we say actually that is wrong, you have no sense of grievance.

In Afghanistan and Iraq we have billions of dollars waiting there to help reconstruct the country, the country is a democracy, where is the suppression? You know the Taliban down in the south where British troops have gone in to try and clear out theTaliban, they have literally taken teachers out in front of their class and executed them in front of class for teaching girls. Now where should the sense of grievance be - against us who have actually helped those countries and those people get democracy for the first time, or these absolutely brutal murderous terrorists who want to send them back into some sort of feudal time?

In other words unless we are prepared to stand up and say, 'No actually what you think about America is nonsense', I mean I said this to some people the other day and it was difficult, but you have got to say it. I said look, as far as I am aware people in America are free to practise their religion as Muslims, and they certainly are in Britain, what is the sense of grievance?

Now we may disagree about this or that aspect of foreign policy, but that is not the same as saying that our purpose in going to Iraq and Afghanistan was something to do with the fact that those countries were Muslim, it was to do with the fact that they were threatening our security. That is where this is difficult.

So the answer to your question is yes, there are real worries about anti-Semitism, but I think that the problem is slightly different from that, if I am frank about it, it is that there is a world view there that is very, very, well I would call it somewhat soggy and unable just to see the realities of what is happening. And that is what you have to confront, not just the activities of the terrorists, but their ideas, because far too many of their ideas have some purchase on opinion in the western world.

Question: Will you continue your government's leadership on global climate change now that you are no longer President of the G8?

Tony Blair: I think, as I was saying yesterday with Governor Schwarzenegger - it is great to be with him. I phoned my wife up and she said to me: "How do you feel being with ArnieSchwarzenegger?" I said: "Actually I felt acute body envy really." But anyway we were discussing climate change. The important thing is this. I actually think that there is a real chance for America to take leadership in this area because President Bush made his State of the Union address, talking about the need for America to move to a low carbon economy, we established at the G8 last year a G8+5 dialogue, that is the G8 countries plus Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and of course India and China, and the purpose of it was to try to get the main countries together.

When we look at what is going to succeed Kyoto, instead of trying to get 150 countries, or however many it is, round the table and negotiate something, get the main people together, let's work out a framework but the framework has to include not just America, but China and India on the other side. And we should work out how we manage to get the right binding framework in place with the right targets that allow our economies to grow, and this was the importance of yesterday's meeting, we had a wide range of business leaders there.

What business wants to know is the direction of policy, it wants some regulatory certainty, it wants to know that if we are going to make the investment in the research and the development which is necessary for the science and technology to work, you know they are not suddenly going to find policies move in a different direction.

And I think this is the time for us to work now on the successor to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012, make sure it has all the main players in it, and I think it is a fantastic thing if there are places in the United States that are showing leadership now on this issue because it hugely empowers and emboldens the rest of us. And I want to see this issue back on the agenda for the German G8 next year, I think that will happen, and I do honestly believe that the evidence of climate change is clear and this is a major, major subject for us.

Question: This gentleman says he is a Los Angeles County fire fighter who responded to the 9/11 disaster in New York, and he would like to know how the events of 9/11 changed you personally?

Tony Blair: Well first of all I would like to pay tribute to the fire-fighters from Los Angeles, from New York, from elsewhere who did such a fantastic job, and the public servants everywhere. It did change me personally because some of the things that I have said tonight I can trace back to the speech I made actually in Chicago in 1999 at the time of the Kosovo crisis. But I think what September 11 did for me, quite apart from everything else obviously, the emotional impact such a terrible thing makes, it showed me that the world is genuinely interdependent. I always believed that it was not just an attack on America but it was an attack on America because America was the most powerful country espousing our values and therefore it was an attack on all of us. And I from that moment became determined that we should do everything we could, not just to defeat those that had committed such murder and slaughter of innocent people, but to make sure that in every single part of the world, given its interdependence, we should give people the chance of hope and prosperity and that we should never believe that people languishing in poverty or under extremist governments were not our responsibility.

And one of the things that I find most difficult about politics is that everything really works through the media today, which is the way it is, but sometimes I get frustrated when you can call any numbers of people on to the street to protest against say military action in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever it might be, or against what Israel is doing in Lebanon. There are no demonstrations about North Korea, there is not a placard there, not as far as I know, maybe there is here but not that I have ever seen, and these people live in complete and total enslavement, and I think our job has got to be, if the world is interdependent, that is something we can't help. We can't helpglobalisation, globalisation is a fact, but the values that govern globalisation are a choice and our choice should be, and this is what came home to me as well as everything else after September 11, our choice has got to be the values of liberty, and tolerance and justice, it has got to be a world that is free but also a world that is fair, and that is what I decided after that time to dedicate our foreign policy to trying to do.