Blair Urges U.S. to Seek Help From Syria and Iran

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met in Tehran in early September

LONDON, Nov. 13 — Confronted by likely shifts in American thinking on Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair is to say this evening in a major address that the “nature of the battle” there had changed, and that Western strategy in the Middle East must evolve, possibly to include a “new partnership” with Iran.

Mr. Blair’s remarks come a day before he is scheduled to speak by way of a trans-Atlantic video link to the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel in Washington, concerning some of the same themes. The remarks are part of Mr. Blair’s annual foreign policy address, his first major speech since the Democratic triumph in the American midterm elections last week.

According to an advance text of the speech, Mr. Blair will call for a “whole Middle East strategy,” and seek to rebut the notion that Iraq’s turmoil was caused by the way Britain and the United States conducted their occupation of the country, according to an advance text of the speech.

Terrorism in Iraq “changed the nature of the battle,” Mr. Blair is to say. “Its purpose is now plain: to provoke civil war. The violence is not, therefore, an accident or the result of faulty planning. It is a deliberate strategy. It is the direct result of outside extremists teaming up with internal extremists.”

But the text of the speech acknowledges that western strategy should now change.

“Just as the situation is evolving, so our strategy should evolve to meet it,” Mr. Blair is to say.

The speech includes a call for a major political, economic and military strengthening of the Iraqi government. “However, most crucial is this: Just as it is, in significant part, forces outside Iraq that are trying to create mayhem inside Iraq, so we have to have a strategy that pins them back, not only in Iraq but outside it, too,” Mr. Blair’s remarks continue. “This is what I call a ‘whole Middle East strategy.’

“There is a fundamental misunderstanding that this is about changing policy on Syria and Iran. First, those two countries do not at all share identical interests. But in any event, that is not where we start.”

Mr. Blair’s address calls a settlement between Israel and Palestine the core of the broader effort for peace in the region, followed by a renewed effort to resolve differences over Lebanon. But it accuses Iran of “using the pressure points in the region” to thwart western diplomacy.

Referring to Iran’s leaders, Mr. Blair is to say, “They help the most extreme elements of Hamas in Palestine; Hezbollah in Lebanon; Shia militia in Iraq.” Then his remarks repeat an offer Mr. Blair made last July in a speech in Los Angeles, calling for western powers to “offer Iran a clear strategic choice” to help Middle East peace efforts, withdraw support for “terrorism in Lebanon or Iraq” and abide by international nuclear obligations.

“In that case, a new partnership is possible,” Mr. Blair is to say in his address today. “Or alternatively, they face the consequences of not doing so: isolation.”

Read the rest at the NY Times

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