2 posts tagged “middle east”

Former British PM Rt Hon Tony Blair gave the graduation speech for Yale University this year. It was an inspiring, largely non-political address.

So, after 100 years of Class Days, finally you get a British speaker.
   What took you so long? Did that little disagreement of 1776 rankle so much? And why now? Is it because the British election campaigns only last four weeks long?
   For whatever reason, it is an honour to be here and to say to the Yale College Class of 2008: you did it; you came through; from all of us to all of you, congratulations, well done.
   The invitation to a former British prime minister to address a college which boasts five former presidents, many former vice presidents and senators too numerous to mention, is either to give me an exaggerated sense of my own importance or you a reduced sense of yours.
   It was Churchill or Oscar Wilde, and there is a difference, who called us ‘two nations divided by a common language’—actually it may have been George Bernard Shaw—and so we are. You try being in the European Union.
   I had an unfortunate experience earlier in my premiership, when doing a press conference with a French Prime Minister. I speak French, but not quite as well as I thought.  We decided to do the press conference live, in French. I was asked whether there were any policy positions of the French Prime Minister I desired to emulate. There is a particular phrase, in French, which you must use with care. I didn’t.
   I meant to say there are many different policies of the French Prime Minister that I desired to emulate. What I actually said was that I desire the French Prime Minister in many different positions.
   Anyway, here I am at Yale and set to come back for the fall semester. My old Oxford tutor was, I’m afraid, horrified to hear I had been taken on by Yale. His worries were all for Yale, I may say. He said, ‘I only hope for their sake you’re going there to learn rather than to teach.’
   Now, I know you Yale guys are smart. So what can I tell you that you don’t already think you know?
   I can tell you something of the world as I see it.
   Three days ago, in my role as Middle East envoy, I stood in the heart of Bethlehem. On one side of me lay the concrete barrier which now separates Israel and Palestine. On the other, the historic birthplace of Jesus and the land of Palestine beyond.
   A few days before that, I was in Jericho. If you look up from the town centre, to the left is the Mount of Temptation, where Jesus stayed 40 days and nights. To the right, you can see Mount Nebo where Moses looked down on the Promised Land. And right in front of you is the Valley of Jordan.
   My guide, a Muslim, turned to me, and said, ‘Moses, Jesus, Muhammad—why in God's name did they all have to come here?’
   But in God’s name, they came, and for centuries, their followers have waged war in the name of prophets whose life work was in pursuit of peace.
   Today, the land that encompasses Israel and Palestine, which is small, has the conflict symbolizes the wider prospects of the entire, vast region of the Middle East and beyond. There, the forces of modernization and moderation battle with those of reaction and extremism. The shadow of Iran looms large.
   What is at stake is immense. Will those who believe in peaceful coexistence triumph, matching the growing economic power and wealth with a politics and a culture at ease with the twenty-first century? Or will the victors be those that seek to use that economic wealth to create a politics and culture more relevant to the feudal Middle Ages?
   Thousands of miles from here, this struggle is being played out in the suburbs of Baghdad and Beirut and the Gaza Strip. But the impact of its outcome on our security here and way of life here will register in the core of our well-being.
   In fact, if I had to sum up my view of the world, I would say to you: turn your thoughts to the east. Not just to the Middle East. But to the Far East. For the first time in many centuries, power is moving east.
   China and India each have populations roughly double those of America and Europe combined. In the next two decades, those two countries together will undergo industrialization four times the size of the USA’s and at five times the speed.
   We must be mindful that as these ancient civilizations become somehow younger and more vibrant, our young civilization does not grow old. Most of all we should know that in this new world, we must clear a path to partnership, not stand off against each other, competing for power.
   The world in which you, in time to come, will take the reins, cannot afford a return to twentieth-century struggles for hegemony.
   The characteristic of this modern world is the pace and scope and scale of globalization. Globalization is driving the change and people are driving globalization.
   The consequence is that the world opens up, its boundaries diminish, we are pushed closer together. The conclusion is that we make it work together or not at all.
   The issues you must wrestle with—the threat of climate change, food scarcity, and population growth, worldwide terror based on religion, the interdependence of the world economy—my student generation would barely recognize. But the difference today is that they are all essentially global in nature.
   You understand this. Yale has become a melting pot of culture, language and civilization. You are the global generation. So be global citizens.
   Each new generation finds the world they enter. But they fashion the world they leave. So, what do you inherit and what do you pass on?
   The history of humankind is marked by great events but it’s written by great people. People like you.
   Given Yale’s record of achievement, perhaps by you.
   At this point, I would like to thank the seniors, who invited my son Euan to the Yale naked parties. I would like to thank my son Euan for having refused the invitation.
   So to you as individuals, what wisdom, if any, have I learned?
   First, in fact, keep learning. Always be alive to the possibilities of the next experience, of thinking, doing and being.
   When the Buddha was asked, near the end of his life, to describe his secret, he answered bluntly, ‘I’m awake.’
   So be awake.
   Understand conventional wisdom, but be prepared to change it.
   Feel as well as analyse. Use your instinct alongside your reason. Calculate too much and you miscalculate. Be prepared to fail as well as to succeed, because it is failure, not success, that defines character.
   I spent years trying to be a politician, failing at every attempt and nearly gave up. I know you’re thinking: I should have. Sir Paul McCartney reminded me that the first record company the Beatles approached rejected them as a band no one would want to listen to.
   Be good to people on your way up, because you never know if you will meet them again on your way down.
   Judge someone by how they treat those below them not those above them.
   Be a firm friend, not a fair-weather friend. It’s your friendships, including those here at Yale, at this time, that will sustain and enrich the human spirit.
   A good test of a person is who turns up at their funeral and with what sincerity. Try not to sit the test too early, of course.
   Recently, I attended a funeral, and the speaker said he would like to begin by reading a list of all those whose funerals he would rather have been attending, but the list was too long. It was kind of a sweet compliment to our friend.
   Alternatively, there was Spike Milligan, the quintessential English comic who, when he was asked what he would like as the epitaph on his tombstone, replied, ‘They should write: “I told you I was ill.”’
   There was a colleague of mine in the British Parliament who once asked another, ‘Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?’ and got the reply, ‘Because it saves time.’
   So, when others think of you, let them think not with their lips, but their hearts, of a good friend and a gracious acquaintance.
   Above all, however, have a purpose in life. Life is not about living but about striving. When you get up, get up motivated. Live with a perpetual sense of urgency. And make at least part of that purpose about something bigger than you.
   There are great careers. There are also great causes. At least let some of them into your lives. Giving lifts the heart in a way that getting never can. Maybe it really was Oscar Wilde who said, ‘No one ever died saying, “If only I had one more day at the office.”’
   One small but shocking sentence: each year, three million children die in Africa from preventable disease or conflict. The key word? Preventable.
   When all is said and done, there is usually more said than done. So be a doer, not a commentator. Seek responsibility rather than shirk it.
   People often ask me about leadership. And I say: leadership is about wanting the responsibility to be on your shoulders, not ignoring its weight but knowing someone has to carry it, and reaching out for that person to be you. Leaders are heat-seekers, not heat-deflectors.
   And luck?
   You have all the luck you need. You are here, at Yale, and what, apart from the hats, could be better?
   And you have something else: your parents.
   You know, when you are your age, you can never imagine being our age. But believe me, when you’re our age, we remember clearly being your age. That’s why I am so careful about young men and my daughter: ‘Don’t tell me what you're thinking. I know what you’re thinking.’
   But as a parent, let me tell you something about parents. Despite all rational impulses, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite what we think you do to us and what you think we do to you—and yes, it is often hell on both sides—the plain, unvarnished truth is that we love you. Simply, profoundly and utterly.
   I remember, back in the mists of time my Dad greeting me off the train at Durham Railway Station. I was a student at Oxford. Oxford and Cambridge are for Britain kind of like Yale and Harvard, only more so. It was a big deal. I had been away for my first year and I was coming home.
   I stepped off the train. My hair was roughly the length of Rumpelstiltskin’s, and unwashed. I had no shoes and no shirt. My jeans were torn, and this was in the days before this became a fashion item. Worst of all, we had just moved house. Mum had thrown out the sitting room drapes. I had retrieved them and made a sleeveless long coat with them.
   My Dad greeted me. There were all his friends at the station. Beside me, their kids looked like paragons of respectability.
   He saw the drapes. He visibly winced. They did kind of stand out. I took pity on him.
   ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘There’s good news. I don’t do drugs.’
   My Dad looked me in the eye and said, ‘Son, the bad news is if you’re looking like this and you’re not doing drugs, we’ve got a real problem.’
   Your parents look at you today with love. They know how hard it is to make the grade and they respect you for making it.
   And tomorrow, as I know, as a parent of one of the graudate classes, as you receive your graduation, their hearts will beat with the natural rhythm of pride. Pride in what you have achieved. Pride in who you are.
   They will be nervous for you as you stand on the threshold of a new adventure, for they know the many obstacles that lie ahead.
   But they will be confident that you can surmount those obstacles, for they know also the strength of character and of spirit that has taken you thus far.
   So, to my fellow parents, I say: let us rejoice and be glad together. And to the Yale College Class of 2008, I say: well done, and may blessings and good fortune be yours in all the years to come.

From Dox²’s blog, a transcript of President George W. Bush’s latest speech on the war on terror. Whether you agree with the man or not, I think it makes interesting reading, especially since this gets little air time in New Zealand while so many hop on to the anti-Bush bandwagon. Slightly edited from the original for clarity.

Some in America don’t believe we’re at war, and that’s their right. I know we are, and therefore, will spend my time as the President doing the best I can to educate people about the perils of the world in which we live, and that we have an active strategy in dealing with it.
   First, the enemy. These folks aren’t isolated folks, you know, they just kind of randomly show up. They have an objective. They believe as strongly in their ideology as I believe in ours. They believe that they have a obligation to spread a point of view that says, for example, if you don’t worship the way we tell you to worship, there will be a consequence; just like I believe we have an obligation to defend a point of view that says, what matters is the right for you to choose your religion, and you’re free to do so in the United States of America.
   They believe that they can use—they have no value for human life, see. That’s what distinguishes them from us in another way. They will kill a Muslim, a child, or a woman in a moment’s notice to achieve a political objective. They are dangerous people that need to be confronted.
   And that’s why, since September the 11th, our policy has been to find them and defeat them overseas so we don’t have to face them here at home again. Now, that is a strong—a short-term strategy, because the long-term strategy has got to be one that marginalizes these extremists and radicals by promoting an alternative ideology—I like to say, an ideology based on light; an ideology that promotes hope; an ideology when, given a chance, has worked every time to lift people’s spirits. And that’s the ideology based upon liberty, the chance for people to live in a free and open society.
   And it’s hard work. And this war is on a multiple of fronts. One front is Afghanistan. And the front that is consuming the American people right now is Iraq. And I fully understand how tough it is on our psyche. I fully understand that when you watch the violence on TV every night, people are saying, is it worth it? Can we accomplish an objective? Well, first, I want to tell you, yes, we can accomplish and win this fight in Iraq. And secondly, I want to tell you, we must, for the sake of our children and our grandchildren.
   You know, I was very optimistic at the end of ’05 when 12 million Iraqis went to the polls. I know it seems like a decade ago. It wasn’t all that long ago that, when given a chance, 12 million people voted. I wasn’t surprised, but I was pleased—let me put it to you that way. I wasn’t surprised because one of the principles on which I make decisions is that I believe in the universality of freedom. I believe that freedom belongs to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth. As a matter of fact, to take it a step further, I believe it is a gift from an Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth. And therefore, I wasn’t surprised when people, when given the chance, said, I want to be free. I was pleased that 12 million defied the car bombers and killers to vote.
   Our policy at that point in time was to get our force posture in such a position, is that we would train the Iraqis so they would take the fight to those who would stop the advance of democracy, and that we’d be in a position to keep the territorial integrity in place, and chase down the extremists. That was our policy. We didn’t get there in 2006 because a thinking enemy—in this case, we believe al-Qaeda, the same people that attacked us in America—incited serious sectarian violence by blowing up a holy religious site of the Shia. And then there was this wave of reprisal.
   And I had a decision to make. Some of Steve’s colleagues—good, decent, patriotic people—believed the best thing for the United States to do at that point was to step back and to kind of let the violence burn out in the capital of Iraq. I thought long and hard about that. I was deeply concerned that violence in the capital would spill out into the countryside. I was deeply concerned that one of the objectives of al-Qaeda—and by the way, al-Qaeda is doing most of the spectacular bombings, trying to incite sectarian violence. The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is the crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims, trying to stop the advance of a system based upon liberty.
   And I was concerned that the chaos would more enable them to—more likely enable them to achieve their stated objective, which is to drive us out of Iraq so they could have a safe-haven from which to launch their ideological campaign and launch attacks against America. That’s what they have said. The killers who came to America have said, with clarity, ‘We want you out of Iraq so we can have a safe-haven from which to attack again.’
   I think it’s important for the Commander-in-Chief to listen carefully to what the enemy says. They thrive on chaos. They like the turmoil. It enables them to more likely achieve their objectives. What they can’t stand is the advance of an alternative ideology that will end up marginalizing them.
   So I looked at consequences of stepping back—the consequences not only for Iraq, but the consequences for an important neighbourhood for the security of the United States of America. What would the Iranians think about America if we stepped back in the face of this extremist challenge? What would other extremists think? What would al-Qaeda be able to do? They’d be able to recruit better and raise more money from which to launch their objectives. Failure in Iraq would have serious consequences for the security of your children and your grandchildren.
   And so I made the decision, rather than pulling out of the capital, to send more troops in the capital, all aimed at providing security, so that an alternative system could grow. I listened to the commanders that would be running the operation—in this case, the main man is a man named Gen David Petraeus—a smart, capable man, who gives me his candid advice. His advice: ‘Mr President,’ is, ‘we must change the mission to provide security for the people in the capital city of Iraq, as well as in Anbar province, in order for the progress that the 12 million people who voted can be made.’ That’s why we’ve done what we’ve done.
   And we just started. He got all the troops there a couple of weeks ago. He asked for 20,000-some troops, and I said, ‘If that’s what you need, Commander, that’s what you got.’ And they just showed up. And they’re now beginning operations in full.
   And in Washington, you got people saying, stop. And here’s my attitude about this—and I understand there’s a debate, and there ought to be a debate in our democracy, and I welcome it. I welcome a good, honest debate about the consequences of failure, the consequences of success in this war. But I believe that it’s in this nation’s interest to give the commander a chance to fully implement his operations. And I believe Congress ought to wait for Gen Petraeus to come back and give his assessment of the strategy that he’s putting in place before they make any decisions. That’s what the American people expect. They expect for military people to come back and tell us how the military operations are going.
   And that’s the way I’m going to play it, as the Commander-in-Chief. I’ll be glad to discuss different options—the truth of the matter is, I felt like we could be in a different position at the end of 2005. I believe we can be in a different position in a while, and that would be to have enough troops there to guard the territorial integrity of that country, enough troops there to make sure that al-Qaeda doesn’t gain safe haven from which to be able to launch further attacks against the United States of America, enough troops to be embedded and to help train the Iraqis to do their job.
   But we couldn’t get there without additional troops. And now I call upon the United States Congress to give Gen David Petraeus a chance to come back and tell us whether his strategy is working. And then we can work together on a way forward.
   In the meantime, the Iraqis have got to do more work. This coming week I’ll be presenting to the Congress a list of some of the accomplishments and some of the shortfalls of their political process. They’ve asked us to report on 18 different benchmarks. That’s what the Congress said in this last supplemental spending bill; they said, come back here in mid-July and give us an interim report as to whether or not any progress is being made in Iraq. And that’s what we’ll be doing. So at the end of this week you’ll see a progress report on what’s been happening in Iraq—and then in September, a final report on the benchmarks that I accepted and that Congress passed.
   And so that’s the challenge facing the country. And it’s a necessary—in my judgement, it’s necessary work. I wouldn’t ask a mother or a Dad—I wouldn’t put their son in harm’s way if I didn’t believe this was necessary for the security of the United States and peace of the world. And I strongly believe it. And I strongly believe we will prevail. And I strongly believe that democracy will trump totalitarianism every time. That’s what I believe. And those are the belief systems on which I’m making decisions that I believe will yield the peace.
   You know, it’s really interesting in my position—I obviously have a unique view of things at times. And one of the most interesting views that I’ve been able to—of history that I’ve been able to really focus on is our relationship with Japan. I’ve told this story a lot because I find it to be very ironic.
   When my Dad was a young guy, right out of high school, he joined the United States Navy, became a Navy torpedo bomber pilot and fought the Japanese. They were the sworn enemy of the United States of America. And he, like a lot of other young people, gave it their all. And a lot of people died on both sides of the war. As a matter of fact, it was—the Japanese, as you rightly know, was the last major attack on the United States, prior to September the 11th, 2001. Some 60 years later, I’m at the table, talking about the peace with the Japanese Prime Minister, Prime Minister Koizumi.
   I find that to be an inspiring story and a hopeful story. It’s a story about the ability of liberty to transform enemies into allies. It’s a story about the ability for those who fought to become partners in peace. Prime Minister Koizumi, and now Prime Minister Abe, are close friends of mine in the international arena. We talk about the spread of democracy in the troubled part of the world because we both have seen the effects of democracy in our own relationship.
   I’ve got great faith in the power of liberty to transform the world for the sake of peace. And the fundamental question facing our country is, will we keep that faith?