This article titled “Tony Blair issues Arab spring warning to west” was written by Patrick Wintour, for The Guardian on Wednesday 8th June 2011 22.28 UTC

Tony Blair warns the west today that it urgently needs a wider plan to respond to the Arab spring, including a warning to autocratic leaders across the Middle East “to change or be changed”.

His call for a clearer strategic approach comes in a new foreword to the paperback edition of his bestselling autobiography, The Journey.

The former prime minister also praises Europe, and by implication David Cameron, for showing leadership in Libya, saying it would have been inconceivable to leave Muammar Gaddafi in power.

He said that if America and Europe had done nothing, “Gaddafi would have retaken the country and suppressed the revolt with extraordinary vehemence. Many would have died.”

If he had been left in power while the west was willing to see President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt deposed, “the damage to the west’s reputation, credibility and stature would have been not just massive but potentially irreparable. That’s what I mean by saying inaction is also a decision.”

Blair does not call for immediate military intervention across the region, saying instead that “where there is the possibility of evolutionary change, we should encourage and support it. This is the case in the Gulf states.”

He hails the way in which “Europe and America came together over Libya and, though it is difficult and though the way things will turn out is uncertain, it showed leadership; and amongst the criticism, there was also – in the region – relief that leadership was shown”.

While praising European and US efforts in Libya, Blair also calls for an elected European president who would have a mandate for far-reaching reforms including collaborating on taxes. In an interview in the Times he says such an office would give Europe “strong, collective leadership and direction”. But he accepts that the idea has “no chance of being accepted at the present time”.

In his book, Blair acknowledges that the west cannot intervene across the Middle East and claims some leaders are “already embarking on a path of steady change. We should help them keep to it and support it. None of this means we do not criticise strongly the use of violence against unarmed civilians. Or that if that violence continues, we do not reserve the right then to move to outright opposition to the status quo, as has happened in Libya. But it is more sensible to do so in circumstances where the regime has excluded a path to evolutionary change. Then it is clear: the people have no choice. But if there is a process that can lead to change with stability, we should back that policy.”

He adds: “My point is simple: we need to have an active policy, be players and not spectators sitting in the stands, applauding or condemning as we watch.”

He says that the lesson for autocratic regimes the world over is to change – or be changed.

Largely in line with the policy laid out at the G8 summit of most industrialised nations in Deauville last month, he says: “We should stand ready to help with aid, debt relief and the muscle of the international financial institutions, but we should also be quietly insistent that such help won’t succeed unless proper rules and order are put in place.”

Blair, still the special envoy of the quartet in the Middle East, admits the Arab spring is going to make it harder to secure a Palestinian peace deal since Israel is less certain about the nature of the threat it faces.

The stability and predictability of Israel’s neighbours, he says, has been replaced by instability and unpredictability.

“For similar reasons, but with an opposite conclusion, the Palestinian leadership find it hard to go into negotiation with an Israeli partner they don’t trust, to make difficult compromises which will be tough to sell, in circumstances where they don’t know the regional context into which such compromises will be played.”

Blair also warns more broadly that the world has not yet adjusted to the emergence of China as a global economic giant, saying “engagement with geopolitics of the 21st-century will be unlike anything the modern world has seen. Our children in the west will be a generation growing up in a situation where virtually every fixed point of reference that my and my parents’ generation knew has changed or is changing”.

He claims energy security will become as serious an issue for the nation states as defence.

Blair says: “Currently China consumes around 10% of worldwide demand for oil. If its GDP per head carries on rising – and follows the path of similar increases in living standards in South Korea and Taiwan, say – the world output will need to double, and China’s share of demand will rise from 10% to 50%.”

He also questions the way in which the EU leaders have led the debate about its future, saying “there has been an obsession about institutional integration in itself rather than a debate about what we want to do as Europe, where the institutions should be at the service of the policy, rather than the policy at the service of institutions”.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

This article titled “Tony Blair: Mubarak is ‘immensely courageous and a force for good’” was written by Chris McGreal in Washington, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 2nd February 2011 03.55 UTC

Tony Blair has described Hosni Mubarak, the beleaguered Egyptian leader, as “immensely courageous and a force for good” and warned against a rush to elections that could bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

The former prime minister, now an envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, praised Mubarak over his role in the negotiations and said the west was right to back him despite his authoritarian regime because he had maintained peace with Israel.

But that view is likely to anger many Egyptians who believe they have had to endure decades of dictatorship because the US put Israel’s interests ahead of their freedom.

Speaking to Piers Morgan on CNN, Blair defended his backing for Mubarak.

“Where you stand on him depends on whether you’ve worked with him from the outside or on the inside. I’ve worked with him on the Middle East peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians so this is somebody I’m constantly in contact with and working with and on that issue, I have to say, he’s been immensely courageous and a force for good,” he said.

“Inside Egypt, and I have many Egyptian friends, it’s clear that there’s been a huge desire for change.”

Asked if the west had not been an obstacle to change, Blair defended the policies of his and other governments.

“I don’t think the west should be the slightest bit embarrassed about the fact that it’s been working with Mubarak over the peace process but at the same time it’s been urging change in Egypt,” he said.

Blair argued that the region has unique problems that make political change different from the democratic revolutions in eastern Europe. He said the principal issue was the presence of Islamist parties that he fears will use democracy to gain power and then undermine the freedoms people seek.

“It’s perfectly natural for those from the outside to want to support this movement for change at the same time as saying let’s be careful about this and make sure that what happens in this process of change is something that ends in free and fair elections and a democratic system of government and it doesn’t get taken over or channelled in to a different direction that is at odds with what the people of Egypt want,” he said.

Blair said that meant there should not be a rush to elections in Egypt.

“I don’t think there’s a majority for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. On the other hand, what you’ve got to watch is that they are extremely well-organised and well-funded whereas those people who are out on the street at the moment, many of them will be extremely well-intentioned people but they’re not organised in political parties yet. So one of the issues in the transition is to give time for those political parties to get themselves properly organised,” he said.

Blair said he did not doubt that change was coming to Egypt.

“People want a different system of government. They’re going to get it. The question is what emerges from that. In particular I think the key challenge for us is how do we help partner this process of change and help manage it in such a way that what comes out of it is open minded, fair, democratic government,” he said.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

From the AP:

Israeli fighter jets scrambled to intercept an unidentified aircraft suspected to be hostile this week, only to find that it carried none other than Tony Blair, a top military official said Friday.

…The plane failed to respond to repeated control tower radio calls demanding that it identify itself, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the media.

As is common practice in such a case, the Israeli air force sent two fighter jets to intercept the aircraft. They flew above the former British prime minister’s plane and quickly established contact. The pilot told them of the traveler on board, the official added.

From the AFP:

Former British prime minister Tony Blair is to take up a post teaching at Yale, one of the top educational institutions in the United States, the university said Friday.

Blair, who stepped down as prime minister last year after 10 years in power, was to lecture on faith and globalization as the Howland Distinguished Fellow, and would start in the next academic year, the university said.

It’s great that Blair accepted the post at Yale. It would have been fascinating to take a class taught by such a distinguished individual. Unfortunately, his new post will surely bring a few morons out of the woodwork who will attempt to disrupt his classes and protest his employement.

-Chris Jones

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has left the Church of England and converted to Catholicism, the faith of his wife and children.

Blair converted during a Mass Friday night at the private London chapel of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the church said.

“I’m very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church,” Murphy-O’Connor said.

The church said Blair had been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family and in recent months had been following a program leading to his reception into the church.

Although he was an Anglican, Blair attended Catholic Masses at Westminster Cathedral, while on holiday in Italy, and with his wife Cherie at 10 Downing St.

The couple’s children have attended Catholic schools.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who is the spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans, wished Blair the best in his spiritual journey.

“Tony Blair has my prayers and good wishes as he takes this step in his Christian pilgrimage. A great Catholic writer of the last century said that the only reason for moving from one Christian family to another was to deepen one’s relationship with God. I pray that this will be the result of Tony Blair’s decision in his personal life.”

Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in June, the month he stepped down as Britain’s prime minister.

Tony Blair has been paid more than $500,000 for a 20-minute speech in China, meaning he has overtaken Bill Clinton to become the world’s most sought-after public speaker.

Britons might have tired of hearing from the former prime minister but in the southern Chinese industrial town of Dongguan his words appear to be worth their weight in gold.

Mr Blair’s lucrative speech to a group of about 600 Communist party officials, businessmen and investment bankers confirms he has shot into the super league of after-dinner speakers.

Bill Clinton was paid a mere $100,000 for a speaking engagement in Hong Kong late last year.