Tony Blair er too smart for his own good. Han nekter å la seg fange, eller falle ned på en bestemt side. Han vil gjerne være «over», «dommeren». Men i balansen mellom å ville være kong Salomo og politiker, vekker han irritasjon. Han vil ikke commit himself.

Slik også i et intervju med Charles Moore i Telegraph. Blair er utvilsomt en av de mest begavede politikere i samtiden. Men han hedges his bet, han helgarderer, selv når han er ute av politikken.

Han beskriver selv hvordan politikken har gjort ham slik:

Mr Blair cites a meeting at the Davos Economic Forum a few years ago. There were representatives of four different faiths on the platform, each with what he calls »an exclusive truth claim’’ for their religion. He asked them if they thought that only their faith led to salvation. »It was interesting to see them reacting as politicians react. I spotted all the techniques of walking round it.’’

Katten rundt grøten-holdning holder ikke for en politiker som vil bety noe. Det mest skuffende ved intervjuet er at Moore skriver at ikke på ett eneste punkt går Blair – som er Storbritannias mest kjente katolikk – mot en samtidsissue – han er også for ekteskap mellom homofile. Det gjør ham moderne og glatt.

Han sier – noe overraskende – at han er mer opptatt av religion enn politikk. Det politiske spill kjenner han til bunns, men religion og kultur er mer komplisert og det er de store spørsmål i vår tid, som truer med å velte lasset, nå som vi rykker stadig nærmere hverandre. Dette er det eneste punkt hvor Blair sier noe originalt.

The subject is religion and society.
The nation’s most famous Catholic convert set up his Faith Foundation to tackle such questions. He speaks of the future. The “fundamentalist doctrines of politics”, such as fascism and communism, he says, went out with the 20th century. In the 21st, when globalisation has pushed people ever closer together, the disputed territory and, he warns, the “dominant security threat”, relate to religion and culture. He wants to provide the “platform” where people of different faiths can together find out what unites them.

Blair sier han konvererte pga kona Cherie. Hennes familie er katolikker. Dette er tamt. Han vil ikke si noe personlig om tro. Han leser originaltekstene, særlig Koranen.

Under the benign influence at Oxford of the Anglican priest Peter Thompson, young Tony came to believe that faith and reason could be reconciled. From this he concluded that different faiths, especially the »Abrahamic’’ religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, could build on what they have in common. Now he reads the scriptures of other faiths, and finds his own enriched. In particular, he reads the Koran.
»I see the Koran very much as an outsider. It stands in the great prophetic tradition of trying to return people to the basic principles of spirituality. Taken for its time, it was an extraordinarily progressive declaration of principle. It is also extraordinary for a Christian to read: for example, there are more references to Mary than in the Gospels. The tragedy is that it has been so warped and misapplied.’’

Her blir han konkret. Islamismen har ikke avtatt, den vokser, og særlig i Afrika. Det er ikke en retning som ønsker dialog eller er villig til å innstille seg på samme nivå som motparten. Blairs ord er også en kritikk av Obamas Kairo-tale.

And here, Tony Blair has grown sterner. After September 11, 2001, he now thinks, he underestimated the power of the bad »narrative’’ of Islamist extremists. That narrative – that »The West oppresses Islam” – »is still there. If anything, it has grown.’’ It seeks »supremacy not coexistence’’. He fears that »The West is asleep on this issue’’, and yet it is the biggest challenge. In Africa, all the good things he sees through his Africa Governance Initiative face »this threat above all others’’. In »Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, outbursts in Tanzania and Kenya’’, sectarian Islamist extremism is the great and growing problem. By implication, Mr Blair seems to doubt President Obama’s outreach to Islam, because it tends to deal with the wrong people. Since Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009, »the whole context has changed’’. The Muslim Brotherhood is taking over large parts of the Arab world, and »the people without the loudest voices are desperate for our leadership’’.
»We must engage, but also challenge,’’ he warns. The Middle East »won’t achieve democracy unless it understands that democracy is a way of thinking as well as voting. The key question is how the majority treats the minority.’’ The West, he says, has been too slow to help the people of Iran: »It is a great civilisation. The people would undoubtedly boot their government out at the ballot box if they could. It is important they know we are prepared to help them. A Persian spring would be very welcome.’’

But have you considered, I ask, that you might be wrong about Islam? What if it is not, at root, a religion of peace? He has thought about this but doesn’t accept it. He makes a comparison with Christianity. »At Mass, at the end of the Bible readings, we say ‘This is the word of the Lord’. We now take it as the spirit of Biblical teaching. We don’t take every element of it as literal. That process took us a long time.’’ Islam is wrestling with the same process today.

Dette er det eksplisitte Blair sier i intervjuet. Charles Moore savner klarere standpunkter, savner kanskje også mer konsekvens?

it is not really possible to find a public policy issue where he takes a specifically religious view against the prevailing secularism

Moore kommer med en ganske «damning» karakteristikk av Blair:

It has been a lively conversation, but I detect in him something like Britain’s famous problem of having lost an empire, but not yet found a role.

Det er neppe en karakteristikk Blair ville vært fornøyd med. Han flørter med et comeback, han sier han har lært så mye han gjerne ville anvendt. Hvis han var blitt spurt ville han tatt jobben som EUs president, den som belgiske Herman von Rompuy har.

Men han ble ikke spurt.

Tony Blair: ‘The West is asleep on the issue of Islamist extremism’