Opinion: Tony Blair On The Spot
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Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, stopped by the Times yesterday for an action-packed Q&A session with the editorial board and other senior editors. Among the questions that were asked was one question from a reader. Exerpts from our conversation with Blair are below. The full list of questions and more information can be found here.
Featured question
Why do you continually focus so much on increasing economic aid to Africa instead of corruption, when you know, and if you don’t you certainly need to find out the reality, especially here in Nigeria, that the VAST majority of it never reaches the poor people for which it is intended?
— Adisa, Lagos, Nigeria
Blair’s response
‘We’ve got a peer review process, which the African governments are going through, which is actually quite robust, where they have to come up to certain benchmarks on democratic process.
‘We’ve also got the agreement on the extractive industries, which I’m trying to get everybody to agree to, but which will basically mean that there is transparency in all the exploitation of the metal resources of Africa so that people see what’s actually being paid and why.
‘The only way of dealing with Africa is a partnership. We have got to put immense pressure on African countries and African leadership to stop practices of corruption, to get proper judicial systems, we are prepared to help and support them in that, but it was actually a very important moment when President [Olusegun] Obasanjo put forward his proposal to stand for a third term, they said no, and now he’s leaving office. That’s important. There have been African countries changing hands for the first time democratically. But then you get a situation like Zimbabwe where you kind of despair because the pressure for change there should be coming from within Africa, not from outside Africa.
Other selected quotes from Blair:
On Middle East violence: ‘My argument is that the immediate crisis in the Lebanon is indicative of some far deeper crisis, which is basically a struggle about global values.... The most important thing is that we show that our values are based not just on freedom but also on fairness.’
On Israeli bombing of Lebanon: What happened at Qana was terrible and tragic, but the fact is you’re not going to get a cease-fire unless it’s on both sides as part of an agreement.... Short term — there’s no point in being absurd about it — there’s a lot of damage to the cause of moderation done amongst the Arab and Muslim countries, but what’s Israel supposed to do when it comes under attack like that?’
On Iraq’s future: ‘It has evolved into a different type of conflict ... and we will judge whether we have succeeded or not when the democratically elected Iraqi government is predominantly in charge of its country.... You cannot say we have succeeded if in Baghdad actually you’ve got militias running the streets rather then the Iraqi army and security forces. So that’s the test.’
On climate change: ‘America should always be in the lead on every major issue.... You could take the view if America led on climate change the rest of the world would resent it, but actually they wouldn’t. The rest of the world would say, ‘Well, that’s great, America’s caring about an issue we care about.’... A climate change deal without America, China and India is, how can I put it, not entirely effective.’
On use of force: ‘Sudan is a classic example in which once again we are not intervening as strongly as we should be.... I’m basically an interventionist. Afghanistan shows you what happens when you’re not. We let that place go.’
On Bush: ‘Any world leader who deals with President Bush will tell you that whatever disagreement some of them may have with his policy, he is always a charming and courteous person to deal with.