Blair in Chicago

John Rentoul,biographer of Tony Blair reflects on his speech in Chicago last night in which he defended his historic intervention in Kosovo 10 years ago.

It is what John calls

a values-based foreign policy, backed up by a willingness to intervene militarily,

However the legacy of this policy will be Iraq which will hang around his neck like the proverbial albatross.

Also last night he notes

Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister, showed that in Blair's work of bolstering moderate Islam there has been a lot done, a lot still to do. "About 2,000 peace activists applauded" as George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, were branded "fascist war criminals" at a conference in Malaysia.

A chance for the Obama regime to leave its mark on the world

Interesting post from David Paul over at the Huffington Post who believes that it will be foreign policy and not economic policy that will define the Obama regime.

He writes that

we appear to be at a tipping point in foreign affairs that can lead to positive new directions or a new downward spiral in regional conflicts.

He makes some good points about the current state of world affairs

1.that the economic downturn has illustrated the interdependence of national economies, while at the same time demonstrated the risks to individual states that flow from that interdependence.

2.the election of Barack Obama signaled the end of the neoconservative era in US policy, and portends a renaissance of realism in foreign affairs and diplomacy based on national self-interest.

The focus of foreign policy will be on three countries,Russia,Iran and Syria all wanting to use this opportunity to alter their place in the world

As Paul says

For Barack Obama, as well, this is a moment of opportunity. But as he has suggested when speaking of the economic challenges we face, in the world of foreign policy, our major challenges are interconnected. He cannot put any aside for another day.

A Congolese connundrum for Miliband

The Congo has fallen off the front pages as have most stories in the past couple of days.
Over at First Post,Will Self writes a provocative assessment of our policy there in which he calls the Foreign Secretary’s trip to Africa an act of hypocrisy

Miliband has never made any secret of his devout belief in the advancement of democracy and human rights through the barrel of a cut-rate gun. For him there is still a Rousseau-like State of Nature, in which left to their best instincts, representative humans would invariably choose the system of government that results in the election of leaders exactly like… David Miliband

According to Self it is only the Western countries that are haunted by the events of the 1990's in that part of Africa as they stood idly by whilst

Miliband might care to consider the reigning in of the British multinationals whose grotesque exploitation of Congolese natural resources (aided and abetted by a rogues gallery of local warlords and dictators) has resulted in an armed meltdown that's seen millions die

Cameron's foreign policy excursion.

It is worth reading James Forsyth in the Spectator this week.After much controversy over David Cameron's visit to show support for Georgia at the weekend ahead of David Miliband he writes that

that the Tory leader is more immersed in foreign policy than first seemed probable. Unlike Brown, he has ambitions as an international leader

and for James

The last few days suggest that Cameron’s instincts tend towards aggressive containment. He also has a keen sense of the importance of a British Prime Minister; something that will lead him — as it did Blair — into a more interventionist stance if elected and closer to Washington, still the focus of global power.

A new Tory foreign policy?

The news that David Cameron is off to Tblisi tomorrow must once again put the spotlight on the British or lack of British influence on the peace process in the Caucasus.

Cameron will meet political leaders in the Georgian capital and it is worth looking at his performance during this crisis.

Earlier in the week he was keen to evoke Churchillian language comparing the West's stand with the appeasement movement in the 1930's and his language and speeches were reminiscent of Mrs Thatcher's during the Cold war.

Is this a pointer to the future or is this the language of a politician in opposition? He certainly sounds like a strong Western leader and his weaken visit will have been designed to show the Russians where he is standing firm.

So in a Cameron world,what would we see?Strong action against Iran,Zimbabwe? But what if Obama is in the White House?

Should he or shouldn't he

Gordon Brown continues to dither over whether or not to meet the Dalai Lama on his visit to Britain in May.

The first post is reporting that the Prime Minister

is now expected to welcome the controversial Tibetan leader to Downing Street - but only if the current violence in Tibet has died down

.

Brown does of course face a political dilemma coming so soon after his visit to China to foster good economic relations earlier in the year.But what of the government's ethical foriegn policy?

The Chinese are not going to be happy,the same report tells of David Cameron suggesting that he will meet with the spiritual leader,

When Cameron told the Chinese ambassador, Fu Ying, that he intended to meet the Dalai Lama, "She threw a hissy fit," according to a Conservative shadow minister. "It was made pretty clear to David that it would be regarded as highly unhelpful."

Liberal leader Nick Clegg has written to the Prime Minister urging a meeting,

"I have always been a staunch supporter of the rights of the Tibetan people which have been trampled on for far too long by the authorities in Beijing.
"That is why I will be meeting the Dalai Lama when he comes to London in May and I have written to Gordon Brown to urge him to do the same.
"Given the worrying reports of protests and violence in Tibet the Prime Minister must urgently confirm that he will meet with and listen to the Dalai Lama and make the strongest possible representations to the Chinese Government.
"The Chinese government must understand that with the privilege of hosting the Olympic Games comes the responsibility of honouring the highest standards of human rights at home as well as abroad."

The free Tibet campaign have also written to the Prime Minister

with an urgent request that the UK government endorses the Dalai Lama’s call for UN observers to be dispatched immediately to Lhasa. Whilst we appreciate the calls you have already made for restraint, much more action is now needed.

Britain's future in the World

Foreign Secretary David Miliband will set out Britain's position in the world acording to a report on the front page of Today's Guardian.

He is due to

set out the clearest exposition yet of Labour's recast foreign policy when he will argue that mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan must not cloud the moral imperative to intervene - sometimes militarily - to help spread democracy throughout the world

according to political editor Patrick Wintour.

Interesting enough in the comment section of the Independent this morning,Mary Dejevsky writes on Britain's declining role on the diplomatic stage.

In the good old days

There was a time, long after the sun had set on the Empire, when the British still strutted the world stage. If they had the grace not actually to monopolise the very topmost jobs, they commanded respect as the policy-makers, drafters and negotiators who helped the world go round.

but today

the absence of senior Britons from international gatherings is becoming conspicuous. At the Munich security conference last weekend – perhaps Europe's premier defence gathering – it was noted that this was the first time in 40-plus years that no Briton spoke from the platform.

The replacement of Tony Blair with Gordon Brown may well have marked the decline of Britain's inflated role in the world.Maybe Miliband's new direction will alter Britain's place in the world.

Patrick Wintour suggests that he will

· encouraging economic openness as a means of tackling corruption and increasing transparency, including in China;

· a new round of provincial elections in Iraq, to help to bind in former insurgents who want proof of their local influence, and the chance to join the Iraqi security force;

· organisations like the UN or Nato should consider offering "security guarantees" to new but fragile governments, conditional on them abiding by democratic rules;

· support for "civilian surges" for democracy led by "literate, better-educated people able to access information and communicate with others".