STAND-UP GUY – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  Tony Blair was a superb American ally during the Iraq War, often taking major heat at home for his fondness for America.  Now he makes clear that he has no intention of abandoning the struggle that joined him with George W. Bush.  From the BBC:

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today.

He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.

Mr Blair said radical Islamists believed that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified - including the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Mr Blair, who led Britain into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, denied that his own policies had fuelled radicalism.

Asked about the argument that Chechens, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans were resisting foreign occupation, he said Western polices were designed to confront radical Islamists because they were "regressive, wicked and backward-looking".

The aim of al-Qaeda in Iraq was "not to get American troops out of Baghdad [but] to destabilise a government the people of Iraq have voted for", he told the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones in a World Service interview.

COMMENT:  Compare please to our own government's refusal even to name our enemy – you know, the ones who cause "manmade disasters." 

We were lucky to have Tony Blair with us on Iraq, just as we were lucky to have Winston Churchill with us in World War II.  I fear the day when that kind of luck runs out.

September 4, 2010