London: Britain’s former prime minister and Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair said on Monday that sending ground troops to fight Isil militants should not be ruled out.
Blair, who sent British forces to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he knew “as well as anyone” the difficulties of any such move but insisted it should not be discounted.
“I accept fully there is no appetite for ground engagement in the West,” Blair wrote in an essay on the website of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
“But we should not rule it out in the future if it is absolutely necessary. Provided that there is the consent of the population directly threatened and with the broadest achievable alliance, we have, on occasion, to play our part.”
He added that air power alone “will not suffice” in the fight against the Isil group.
“They can be hemmed in, harried and to a degree contained by air power. But they can’t be defeated by it,” Blair added.
“You cannot uproot this extremism unless you go to where it originates and fight it.”
“This is not a clash of civilisations. It is a struggle between those who believe in peaceful co-existence for people of all faiths and extremists who would use religion wrongly as a source of violence and conflict,” he wrote.
