Blair warns it will take more than airstrikes to defeat Islamic State
Writing for his own Faith Foundation, Mideast envoy for Quartet and former British PM says West should be ready to send in ground troops as well.
LONDON -- Western powers must be ready to commit ground forces to the fight against militants from the Islamic State group because airstrikes alone won't defeat these "fanatical" extremists, former British pime minister Tony Blair said Monday.
Writing on his Faith Foundation website, Blair, who is also the regional envoy for the so-called Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, said it would be better if the troops were to come from those closer to the fighting, such as Iraqi or Kurdish forces, but this may not be enough.
"There is real evidence that now countries in the Middle East are prepared to shoulder responsibility and I accept fully there is no appetite for ground engagement in the West," Blair said in an essay dated Monday. "But we should not rule it out in the future if it is absolutely necessary."
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The US and France have launched airstrikes in hopes of weakening the group.
Blair, whose final years in office were marred by the unpopular and much-criticized British engagement in the Iraq war, said that diplomacy and humanitarian work aren't enough to fight groups like Islamic State.
"Because the enemy we're fighting is fanatical, because they are prepared both to kill and to die, there is no solution that doesn't involve force applied with a willingness to take casualties in carrying the fight through to the end," Blair wrote.
The former PM also stressed that fanatical Islam bears no resemblance to the Islam practised by tens of millions of people around the world. The battle against the Islamic State, he said, was not the clash of civilizations that some had tried to present it as.
"Islamism of course is not the same as Islam," he wrote. "The religion of Islam is an Abrahamic religion of compassion and mercy. For centuries it shamed Christendom with its advances in science and social development.
"This is not a clash of civilisations. It is a struggle between those who believe in peaceful co-existence for people of all faiths and none; and extremists who would use religion wrongly as a source of violence and conflict. Our enemies are those who would pervert Islam. Our allies are the many Muslims the world over who are the principal victims of such a perversion."
