Post-Blair opportunity to change security policy, says professor
Regional-UK, Politics, 5/7/2007

The imminent change of political leadership in Britain opens the possibility of more enlightened foreign and security policies, according to Professor of Peace Studies, Paul Rogers.

The replacement of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, almost certainly by Chancellor Gordon Brown, offers an opportunity to change the mindset of the British government about the factors causing the home-grown radicalization of Muslims in the UK, Rogers suggested.

"In particular, there has been a flat refusal to countenance any suggestion of a link between British foreign and security policy on one side, and domestic radicalization on the other," he said.

In an article for Opendemocracy, the professor said there was "deep and widespread evidence that the conduct of the war on terror, especially in Iraq, has caused and is causing great anger among very many Muslims, and radicalization of a substantial minority." Yet, he said, the government of Tony Blair is "absolutely insistent that there remains no connection between Iraq and the threat of attacks in Britain."

"There is no recognition at the top that the many tens of thousands of civilians killed in Iraq have any kind of impact. It is as though the highest reaches of government and the rest of the country occupy two watertight compartments." He suggested that in the absence of open discussion or public acknowledgment by government ministers of the issue, it is left to senior security officers, such as the recently retired director of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, to hint at a link.

In a speech last November, Manningham-Buller said that the video wills of British suicide bombers make it clear that terrorist attacks are "motivated by perceived worldwide and long-standing injustices against Muslims," including Britain's foreign policy.

Rogers, who is one of Britain's leading security analysts, believed that the vital question about the durability of the government's mindset will be challenged during the next few months, when Blair is due to stand down from power.

"In the long transition process, various think-tanks and interest groups allied to Brown have been canvassing views among specialists on the way ahead for British foreign and security policy," he said.

The professor from Bradford University in Northern England believed that as the pace of such gatherings increase in London over the next few weeks, views which counter the prevailing orthodoxy may get a hearing and lead to a change in policy.

But he warned if it did not, the government will continue with "the charade that home-grown terrorism in Britain is totally unconnected with our policies abroad, a charade that may cost many more lives in the years to come."

Previous Stories:
  Blair successor urged to pursue independent foreign policy   (4/23/2007)
  Over half of UK terror arrests freed without charge   (3/6/2007)
  Prejudice against Muslims institutionalized in UK media: study   (1/27/2007)

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