I was late on Tony Blair's speech today because I was busy with other things, including with the post immediately below this one. Reading it finally, I'm struck by two things, one general, the other specific. The general one is just how much more impressive it is in its overall level of political maturity and moral sense than the efforts of most Blair's critics. The specific thing is contained in this passage:
It may well be that under international law as presently constituted, a regime can systematically brutalise and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do, when dialogue, diplomacy and even sanctions fail, unless it comes within the definition of a humanitarian catastrophe (though the 300,000 remains in mass graves already found in Iraq might be thought by some to be something of a catastrophe). This may be the law, but should it be?What an irony! Tony Blair, held in various degrees of disregard, ranging through contempt and beyond contempt, by so many bold critical minds of the liberal-left, a centrist politician reckoned to be of no intellectual consequence by anyone with proper radical credentials, is able to articulate in a few clear sentences an elementary principle of political ethics in relation to the rule of law, while Marxists old and young, who in other times, and even possibly on occasion in these times, are full of ideas about the relationship between law, on the one hand, and power and wealth and vested interests, on the other, and liberals and other progressives wedded when it suits them to the distinction between positive law and justice, positive law and fundamental human rights, and social movementists dedicated to seeing the world in new ways and trying to shape it afresh, are unable - in this matter, the matter of the Iraq war - to rise to the thought that the law also sometimes may be questioned, and sometimes must be questioned, and international law is no exception in this respect.We know now, if we didn't before, that our own self interest is ultimately bound up with the fate of other nations. The doctrine of international community is no longer a vision of idealism. It is a practical recognition that just as within a country, citizens who are free, well educated and prosperous tend to be responsible, to feel solidarity with a society in which they have a stake; so do nations that are free, democratic and benefiting from economic progress, tend to be stable and solid partners in the advance of humankind. The best defence of our security lies in the spread of our values.
But we cannot advance these values except within a framework that recognises their universality. If it is a global threat, it needs a global response, based on global rules.
The essence of a community is common rights and responsibilities. We have obligations in relation to each other. If we are threatened, we have a right to act. And we do not accept in a community that others have a right to oppress and brutalise their people. We value the freedom and dignity of the human race and each individual in it.
[W]e do not accept in a community that others have a right to oppress and brutalise their people.
The full text of the speech is here.