Radical Islam gaining ground across the world, West needs to recognize it

London, Aug 22 (UNI) Radical Islam has been gaining ground across the world over the past several decades, and many Muslim nations are becoming more Islamic in practice and discourse, yet the Western world is chary about recognizing it, because if it had then the US-led coalition would not have agreed to pull out giving way to the Taliban, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said here on Sunday.

Blair, who has termed the decision to pull out of Afghanistan as “tragic, dangerous, unnecessary” and “not in their interests and not in ours”, has in an article said that “the Taliban is part of a bigger picture that should concern us strategically.”

In a piece titled, Why We Must Not Abandon the People of Afghanistan – For Their Sakes and Ours ‘, Blair, who is head of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, writes that while the 9/11 attack shocked the Western world because of its “severity and horror”, the “motivation for such an atrocity arose from an ideology many years in development”.

“I will call it “Radical Islam” for want of a better term. As a research paper shortly to be published by my institute shows, this ideology in different forms, and with varying degrees of extremism, has been almost 100 years in gestation.”

“Its essence is the belief that Muslim people are disrespected and disadvantaged because they are oppressed by outside powers and their own corrupt leadership, and that the answer lies in Islam returning to its roots, creating a state based not on nations but on religion, with society and politics governed by a strict and fundamentalist view of Islam.”

“It is the turning of the religion of Islam into a political ideology and, of necessity, an exclusionary and extreme one because in a multi-faith and multicultural world, it holds there is only one true faith and we should all conform to it.”

He says the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution and its echo in the failed storming of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in late 1979 “massively boosted the forces of this radicalism”. The Muslim Brotherhood became a substantial movement. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan saw jihadism rise.

“In time other groups have sprung up: Boko Haram, al-Shabab, al-Qaeda, ISIS and many others.”

“Some are violent. Some not. Sometimes they fight each other. But at other times, as with Iran and al-Qaeda, they cooperate. But all subscribe to the basic elements of the same ideology.”

“Today, there is a vast process of destabilisation going on in the Sahel, the group of countries across the northern part of sub-Saharan Africa. This will be the next wave of extremism and immigration that will inevitably hit Europe.”

Blair says that his institute works in many African countries. “Barely a president I know who does not think this is a huge problem for them and for some it is becoming THE problem.”

“Iran uses proxies like Hizbullah to undermine moderate Arab countries in the Middle East. Lebanon is teetering on the brink of collapse.

“Turkey has moved increasingly down the Islamist path in recent years.

“In the West, we have sections of our own Muslim communities radicalised.”

“Even more moderate Muslim nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia have, over a period of decades, seen their politics become more Islamic in practice and discourse.”

“Look no further than Pakistan’s prime minister congratulating the Taliban on their “victory” to see that although, of course, many of those espousing Islamism are opposed to violence, they share ideological characteristics with many of those who use it – and a world view that is constantly presenting Islam as under siege from the West.”

“Islamism is a long-term structural challenge because it is an ideology utterly inconsistent with modern societies based on tolerance and secular government.

“Yet Western policymakers can’t even agree to call it “Radical Islam”. We prefer to identify it as a set of disconnected challenges, each to be dealt with separately.”

Blair wrote that if we did define radical Islam “as a strategic challenge, and saw it in whole and not as parts, we would never have taken the decision to pull out of Afghanistan.”

“We are in the wrong rhythm of thinking in relation to radical Islam.”

He says while dealing with Revolutionary Communism, the West “recognised it as a threat of a strategic nature, which required us to confront it both ideologically and with security measures.”

“It lasted more than 70 years. Throughout that time, we would never have dreamt of saying, “well, we have been at this for a long time, we should just give up.”

“We knew we had to have the will, the capacity and the staying power to see it through. There were different arenas of conflict and engagement, different dimensions, varying volumes of anxiety as the threat ebbed and flowed.

“But we understood it was a real menace and we combined across nations and parties to deal with it.”

“This is what we need to decide now with Radical Islam.”

“Is it a strategic threat? If so, how do those opposed to it including within Islam, combine to defeat it?”

“We have learnt the perils of intervention in the way we intervened in Afghanistan, Iraq and indeed Libya. But non-intervention is also policy with consequence.”

“What is absurd is to believe the choice is between what we did in the first decade after 9/11 and the retreat we are witnessing now: to treat our full-scale military intervention of November 2001 as of the same nature as the secure and support mission in Afghanistan of recent times.”

He says intervention has to be done by learning the proper lessons of the past 20 years and not according to our short-term politics, “but our long-term strategic interests”.

“But intervention requires commitment. Not time limited by political timetables but by obedience to goals.”

“For Britain and the US, these questions are acute. The absence of across-the-aisle consensus and collaboration and the deep politicisation of foreign policy and security issues is visibly atrophying US power. And for Britain, out of Europe and suffering the end of the Afghanistan mission by our greatest ally with little or no consultation, we have serious reflection to do. We don’t see it yet. But we are at risk of relegation to the second division of global powers. Maybe we don’t mind. But we should at least take the decision deliberatively.”

“There are of course many other important issues in geopolitics: COVID-19, climate change, the rise of China, poverty, disease and development.”

“But sometimes an issue comes to mean something not only in its own right but as a metaphor, as a clue to the state of things and the state of peoples.

“If the west wants to shape the 21st century, it will take commitment. Through thick and thin. When it’s rough as well as easy. Making sure allies have confidence and opponents caution. Accumulating a reputation for constancy and respect for the plan we have and the skill in its implementation.”

“It requires us to learn lessons from the 20 years since 9/11 in a spirit of humility – and the respectful exchange of different points of view – but also with a sense of rediscovery that we in the West represent values and interests worth being proud of and defending.

“And that commitment to those values and interests needs to define our politics and not our politics define our commitment.

“This is the large strategic question posed by these last days of chaos in Afghanistan. And on the answer will depend the world’s view of us and our view of ourselves. “