Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's June 13 article, "The trouble within Islam," is dripping with unintended irony. He slams the Mideast, Muslim countries particularly, for being incompatible with a modern, pluralistic world. The problem with this is that the Middle East is a huge chunk of our world, with millions upon millions of people, and this is their world as well as ours.
He seems to imply that it is the West's job to dictate to the rest of the world what kind of governments and societies they should have. This is Blair's blunder. After the failure of the Iraq and Afghan wars, Blair still hasn't learned that intervention is counterproductive and deadly. The most repulsive thing he says is that Iraq and Afghanistan were fought because "We allowed failed states to come into being." No, those wars were fought because meddling foreign imperialist powers such as the United States and the United Kingdom think that it is OK to violate another country's sovereignty.
The U.K. alone has a history of cutting up the Middle East to suit its interests, and is partially responsible for the instability there.
It is high time that the West abandon its own state-sponsored terror and warmongering and start working, instead, on solving its problems at home. Intervention just creates more resentment, death and poverty. If Blair wants to know who or what caused the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he should look in the mirror.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.