Tony Blair's Speech in Los Angeles

Tony Blair's Speech in Los Angeles

British Prime Minister Blair was clear in defining the dichotomy that exists in the world today. It is between Western (or more accurately Anglo-American and Judeo-Christian) values and Islam's hatred. In CNN's report on the speech Blair stated that the conflict de jour in the Middle East is no less than "part of the wider struggle for the soul of the region."

We must, he said, "recognize this struggle for what it truly is." It is whether "our values can beat theirs." That "would be at least along the first steps of the path to winning it." This is the language that is necessary to match the reality on the ground. Islam aims to destroy our culture and way of life. It is a struggle we must fight, and that we must and will win.

Blair is correct also in his "fear" that "a vast part of Western opinion is not remotely near this yet." For five years those of us who have seen this struggle for what it is have been exasperated at the learning curve of governmental and opinion leaders especially of President Bush's immediate declaration after 9/11 that "the war is not with Islam." You don't hear insouciant remarks like that as frequently now. Indeed you hear more what has been said in little blogs like this and from those, inter alia, like Daniel Pipes, those with more gravitas, that if the war isn't with Islam it is with a a critical mass of dedicated soldiers of Islam, bent on our utter destruction and backed by a strong minority of Muslim men-on-the-street and governments such as Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Prime Minister Blair states clearly what must be done: "it's about modernization within Islam and out of it."

Blair also unequivocally put his country's hand in with that of Israel: "Absent from so much of the coverage is any understanding of the Israeli predicament," he said. It is a struggle between the allied powers of Britain, America and Israel--not ridiculously against Terrorism, a fictional straw man--and Islam. Gone in Prime Minister Blair's speech is the confluence of this Islamic war, with the I.R.A., Basque separatists, Cheychyn rebels, and every other rag-tag bunch of guys with mortars. The struggle today is between Israel/America/Britain and Islam. Blair called out Syria and Iran for "their support of terrorism, their deliberate export of instability." "If they keep raising the stakes, they will find that they have miscalculated. "

"We need to make it clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: Come into the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us or be confronted."

The words highlighted above are changes in the rhetoric of leaders like Blair and our own courageous President Bush. Changes in rhetoric matter at this level of discourse with speakers of this gravitas. More than any speech since 9/11 Prime Minister Blair's speech has starkly cast the choice for Islam and the West.

It is the most important speech of our time. This is Public Occurrences.