Last week, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies reported that the more dramatic external ambitions of the US were being informally buried by the Bush presidency.
"Its unilateralism had put in question the legitimacy of its actions. It was seen to have over-reached itself. It was losing friends even among its natural allies, for example in Latin America," the IISS said in its annual Strategic Survey.
Prime Minister Tony Blair Thursday called for a new "war but of a completely unconventional kind" to be launched against what he called global extremism.
"The answer to terrorism is the universal application of global values. The answer to poverty is the same. That is why the struggle for global values has to be applied not selectively, but to the whole global agenda," Blair said.
His appeal for a 'global alliance for global values' was made in a pamphlet published Thursday by the Foreign Policy Center in London, in what he called for the west "to change dramatically the focus of our policy."
"We must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us," the British premier said.
"We need to construct an alliance of moderation that paints a future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian, Arab and western, wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other," he said.
The pamphlet is based upon three major foreign policy speeches Blair made earlier this year, in which he warned that there is now a worldwide "a clash about civilization."
"The situation we face is indeed war, but not of the conventional kind. And it can't be won in a conventional way. We will not win the battle against global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force," he said.
The prime minister also said he acknowledged that "the state of the Middle East Peace Process and the stand-off between Israel and Palestine remains a - perhaps the - genuine source of anger in the Arab and Muslim world, going far beyond usual anti-western feeling." He repeated his pledge, which he has made every year since the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001, that he would make resolving the conflict "an absolute priority for the rest of my time in office."
"The issue of 'even handedness' rankles deeply. We need relentlessly, vigorously, to put a viable Palestinian Government on its feet, to offer a vision of how the Roadmap to final status negotiation can happen and then pursue it, week in, week out, until it is done," Blair said.
He said "nothing else is more important to the success of our foreign policy," but also warned that it will not happen unless in each individual part the necessary energy and commitment is displayed "not fitfully, but continuously."
In the pamphlet, the British premier, who is accused by critics of being US President George W Bush's poodle, also went on to condemn the strain of anti-American feeling in parts of European politics as "madness."
"The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is if they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage, we need them involved. We want them engaged," he said.
Last week, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies reported that the more dramatic external ambitions of the US were being informally buried by the Bush presidency.
"Its unilateralism had put in question the legitimacy of its actions. It was seen to have over-reached itself. It was losing friends even among its natural allies, for example in Latin America," the IISS said in its annual Strategic Survey.
