Tony Blair's speech to the Foreign Policy centre (Full text)

Guardian Unlimited ^ | March 21, 2006 | Tony Blair

[mdittmar]

Over these past nine years, Britain has pursued a markedly different foreign policy. We have been strongly activist, justifying our actions, even if not always successfully, at least as much by reference to values as interests.

We have constructed a foreign policy agenda that has sought to link, in values, military action in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq with diplomatic action on climate change, world trade, Africa and Palestine.

I set out the basis for this in the Chicago speech of 1999 where I called for a doctrine of international community, and again in the speech to the US Congress in July 2003.

The basic thesis is that the defining characteristic of today's world is its interdependence; that whereas the economics of globalisation are well matured, the politics of globalisation are not; and that unless we articulate a common global policy based on common values, we risk chaos threatening our stability, economic and political, through letting extremism, conflict or injustice go unchecked.

[theDentist]

I always remember Tony Blair's speech before Congress, when he mentioned seeing the scorch marks on the White House, and then says "Sorry about that." still makes me laugh