Blair Sees Chance For Progress on Middle East Conflict
Region Is Facing a 'Critical Moment'

By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 17, 2006

LONDON, Nov. 16 -- Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday offered hope for progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying that "sensible Arab and Muslim countries" now see "strategic reasons" for finding a solution and that new initiatives could come within weeks.

"This is an opportunity for us if we are prepared to seize it now," said Blair, citing leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan as among those who "want to make progress" on an issue he called the "crux" of problems in the Middle East.

Blair, in an interview with The Washington Post at his 10 Downing Street office, declined to provide specifics but said British officials were holding private talks with Middle Eastern governments as well as the Bush administration about measures "to move this forward."

The prime minister is also planning a trip in the next few weeks to the Middle East, which he said was facing a "critical moment."

Blair, who has been President Bush's chief foreign ally on Iraq, said he had no regrets about the 2003 invasion that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein, even though the continuing war has cost him dearly in British public opinion.

"If you left Saddam there, you would have had a whole stack of different problems, and in the end you'd have had to have dealt with Iraq at some point," said Blair, who spoke with passion and certainty about his policies despite growing demand in Britain and the United States for a reassessment of Iraq strategy.

Discussing remarks he made Tuesday during a closed-door video conference with the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel in Washington reviewing Iraq policy, Blair said that any solution to Iraq must begin with progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Israel-Palestine is the one issue that, unresolved, allows extremists to gain purchase on the more moderate elements of the Muslim and Arab world," he said, sipping coffee next to the marble mantelpiece in his office.

Blair, who has said he will step down before next September after serving since 1997, said Islamic extremists are using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a propaganda tool, "so there is a huge additional dimension to its importance."

He said the "next few months are critical" on the Israeli-Palestinian issue: "My worry is there is increasing not just poverty and despair on the Palestinian side but also disintegration, and that is very dangerous."

"So we either decide that we are going to take this moment and use it to drive forward, or obviously there's a danger that the whole region takes a wrong turn," he said.

Blair brushed aside a question about whether he was being unrealistic to think significant progress was possible toward a solution that has eluded a long succession of world leaders. He said focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian problem was "the only realistic thing to do."

Blair said that critics complained for years that sectarian violence in Northern Ireland was too intractable to be solved but that peace accords have ended most violence there.

He said that on the Israeli-Palestinian problem, people generally agree on the long-term solution -- two independent states -- but the difficulty is in hammering out the details.

"Everybody accepts that there's got to be two states," Blair said. "Now, there are issues like Jerusalem, refugees . . . which are very difficult." But "it's not beyond the wit of man" to devise a territorial solution, he said.

"I believe totally in supporting Israel's security," Blair said. "But the truth is the ultimate security lies in a viable and democratic Palestinian state and in resolving the issues with Israel's neighbors."

Blair said Iran has been a divisive force in the Middle East, backing radical elements of Hamas in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Hezbollah militia in last summer's war with Israel. He has also said Iran's backing of Shiite militias in Iraq has been destabilizing there.

Blair said moderate leaders in the region now "can see that the way that Iran has been manipulating these disputes in the region changes the dynamics of power." He said that beyond the fact that many neighbors in the region have sympathy with the Palestinian cause, they now also believe it is in their strategic interest to counter what he called a "cocktail of elements of extremism and fanaticism."

Despite the Iraq war and the other conflicts, Blair said he saw reasons for optimism in the Middle East.

"You go to these Gulf states and you see the changes they're making in their democracy, the changes in their economy," the prime minister said, citing the United Arab Emirates as an example. "There is a way of moving forward in the Middle East that is about step-by-step greater democracy, opening up their economy and presenting themselves to the world in a modern and moderate light."

As the Middle East "is in the process of decision about its future," Blair said, "we have got to be in there, since we've got the right policy. I mean, what do people choose when they're given the chance? They choose to live in free, democratic societies. So we've got the best case."

Asked if he thought the Democratic Party's victory in last week's U.S. congressional elections signaled growing momentum for a reduction in U.S. troops in Iraq, Blair said he was sure Bush "will see this through."

"I don't think you will see the administration backing away from fulfilling what it said it would do," Blair said. "There should never be any doubt, whether it's in terms of myself or the president. We have said that we will stay as long as the Iraqi government needs us to do so."

Blair also said that a key goal in Iraq was to continue to "plug any gaps in the armed forces and their training," because "the Iraqis want to take greater responsibility, and we have got to empower them to do so."

Blair said a friend who recently traveled to Iraq told him that with all the obvious problems, there was a "danger that you move from having been unduly optimistic to unduly pessimistic."

He said it was understandable that as Iraq makes the difficult transition from decades of "brutal repression" under a dictator to democratic rule, "you will have all sorts of poison that then flows out."

But people in Iraq, he said, are committed to creating a "nonsectarian future" because "the alternative is no future."

Blair also made an impassioned plea for the United States to lead the world on climate change, an issue that Blair has championed despite reluctance from the Bush White House.

"There's a big opportunity for the administration and for America on climate change," he said. "What you guys should do is come up with a sensible plan and framework" that encourages business to invest in environmental technology innovations and wins support from emerging powers such as China and India.

"No country is going to mess up its economy to meet some agreed target," Blair said. But private industry will "quickly spot an opportunity" if new markets are created for environmentally friendly technologies, he said.

Blair noted that Bush made a "pretty bold" statement about America's "addiction to oil" in his last State of the Union address.

Now, he said, Bush should follow up with "a framework that can help cure that addiction," then pitch it to the rest of the world, saying, "Come on, everybody has got to do this."