New Delhi, Nov 22: Former British Prime Minister
Tony Blair on Saturday said that Iraq war was not responsible for
growth in terrorism and the thought came from within Islam
and its culture and has to be dealt within that religion
Blair said terrorism was one global movement based on a
"perversion" in Islam.
"We have to stop believing that we have created it or
sustained it. September 11 happened before the Iraq war or
Afghanistan happened," he said in an interactive session at
the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
"This is a worldwide movement, its roots are deep and it
has been growing for a lot of time," he said responding to a
comment that terrorism had grown worldwide after the invasion
of Iraq.
"We have to take out all this notion that it is caused by
us. It is not. It comes from within that religion, culture and
in the end it can be uprooted only from within that religion
and culture," Blair, who backed US President George W Bush in
the invasion of Iraq in the aftermath of the attack on the
World Trade Center in New York, said.
He underscored the need to partner moderate voice within
Islam to deal with the issue of terrorism.
"As such, it must, naturally, be subject to military
means where it poses a military threat," he said, adding that
its ultimate defeat can only come not through force of arms
but force of ideas.
"Against its narrative of victimhood, exclusion and
division, must be set one (narrative) of peaceful
co-existence, universal values and common destiny," Blair
said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, November 22, 2008, 00:00