In the Mail on Sunday, former British PM Tony Blair responded to the Woolwich attack on Drummer Lee Rigby by writing: “There is a problem within Islam…and we have to put it on the table and be honest about it.”
As the Independent reported, Blair made clear that he does not believe there is a problem within Islam per se, but that there is “a strain within Islam” that must be faced. He wrote that this strain “has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.”
Blair indicated that the problem within Islam is bigger than one or two adherents. In fact, he wrote that it is not simply “the province of a few extremists.”
He described “conflict in the Middle East” as a breeding ground for the kind of radicalism now witnessed within Islam, and contends that despite the “long and hard conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq” the West ought not be wary of intervention.