David Aaronovitch: A war leader imposes his moral authority
Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox
Get our free View from Westminster email
The cynics, of right or left, will probably see Tony Blair's speech yesterday as a rhetorical excess – an outbreak of beaconism on a global scale.
"He's no longer the vicar," they'll say, "but the Pope, the Chief Rabbi, the Imam, all rolled into one." It sounded, some may complain, like Blair's job application for the unadvertised post of President of the World. So much piety, wafting quickly through the chaotic, bloody hall of the world like a rose-scented breeze. Maybe. But for me this was the most exhilarating and internationalist address by a British political leader since Churchill roamed the post-war scene, arguing for a new world order.
Churchill was swamped at home by the desire of his people for a new domestic dispensation, and abroad by the growth of the Cold War, but many of his themes were recognisable in the Prime Minister's speech yesterday. It was the war leader using the authority gained in adversity to argue the practical case for a more moral, more interconnected world.
What was least important about Blair's words were the passages most immediately quoted, those dealing with the Taliban, their armed forces and the warnings to them to give up bin Laden or else. This was not a speech about military action and its justification, because that case barely needed to be made. No, the key phrase was this: "Out of the shadow of this evil, should emerge lasting good." Because, as Blair implied, we cannot go on living like this.
We can't, because we are no longer insulated in any way from what happens in other countries. Since 11 September many Britons have been taken on a crash-tour of the world, of states they may never have heard of, but whose strifes now affect our jobs and our lives.
A British baby can be left without a father because of the desire of an Egyptian, trained in Afghanistan by a Saudi, blooded in Chechnya, for a religious emirate. As Blair put it, "We are realising how fragile are our frontiers in the face of the world's new challenges."
This fragility makes internationalism sensible. Or, in the PM's words, "self-interest and mutual interest are inextricably woven together" in an interdependent world. But even so, the scope of Blair's internationalism was truly remarkable. Can you imagine Mrs Thatcher saying that, if the Rwandan massacres were to happen again, we would have a moral duty to act there also?
But Blair knows that no new order can be constructed without the marvellous, impossible Americans, and he has made it his mission to love-bomb the Bushites out of unilateralism and into full engagement with the world. After all, if interdependence requires our solidarity with Washington against terrorism, it also demands something of them. How else could you translate the passage dealing with climate change. "Kyoto is right," said Blair, "we will implement it and call upon all other nations to do so."
From his section on the European Union, and from his audience's response, it is clear that 11 September has made nationalism and provincialism more irrelevant than ever.
If Tony Blair is serious, and has the capacity to persuade others of his case, then this may turn out to be the most important conference speech of my lifetime. He even ended it with some poetic oratory. "The kaleidoscope has been shaken," he said, "the pieces are in flux, soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us."
After he had finished I took a walk to collect my thoughts. I went past the local primary school and heard the kids singing an African song. The adults, meanwhile, are deciding what kind of world they will inherit – how the pieces will settle.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies