Tony Blair, Lindsey Graham: Wake Up! 21st Century War Is Here

The former prime minister, whose charitable foundation is dedicated to rooting out extremism in world religions, said it makes little sense for Western governments to spend billions of dollars on security against terrorism without addressing the fact that people are being educated in extremism in the very bosom of Western societies, alluding to ISIS’ many Western recruits from places like London and Paris.

One possible barrier to violent Islamic extremism is expected this week in Graham’s Senate, where senators from both sides of the aisle are expected to back the Corker-Menendez bill forcing the White House to submit the president’s Iran nuclear agreement to approval before sanctions are relaxed.

Graham drew a distinction between North Korea’s nuclearization, which didn’t trigger U.S. allies Japan and South Korea to acquire their own, to the Middle East, where a nuclear arms race would surely ensue.

“The Arabs will feel they need to match [Iranian capabilities], and then some,” Graham said.

A good deal, he added, requires “anytime, anywhere inspections including military facilities,” as well as an end to state sponsorship of terrorism. Without those conditions, the Iranians would simply plow profits from lifted sanctions into continued military efforts at regional domination rather than “buy hospitals.”

General Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, agreed with the current Republican presidential candidate on Iran:

“We’re greatly underestimating geostrategic risk with the idea that we’ll open up Iran and investment will pour in. Yah, investment will pour in and Iran will use its wealth for self-aggrandizement, support for [Syrian dictator] Bashar Assad, further relations with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin … and using a misshapen [ideology] of achieving heaven through killing.” If the Middle East were not frightening enough, Clark painted a portrait of powder-keg chaos in Europe, where further Russian aggression — against, say, the Baltic countries — could trigger NATO Article 5’s provision obligating member countries to defend any other alliance member under attack.

The Russians’ MO, he says, is to start a provocation on nationalist lines using militarily trained fighters posing as angry Russian national citizens. If, say, Latvian police crack down, “ordinary police don’t do well against Delta Force. You need some special forces, people on two-hour alert who can handle this on the lines of the Italian Carabinieri…If we don’t have this rehearsed, there’ll be lots of confusion: Are these Russians, and can we do something?”

“I feel like I’m sitting at the League of Nations,” the general lamented, referencing the plea by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie when the Italians invaded Abyssinia and the new world body stood helplessly by.

“We need a real wake-up call to get to 21^st century warfare, where the Russians are. Putin is right today where Hitler was in 1936,” when the Nazi leader illegally militarized the Rhineland, unopposed by Western powers.

Far from having a 21^st century military, Graham noted that under the current budgetary sequestration, U.S. defense forces are headed toward “the smallest Army we’ve had since 1940 and the smallest Navy we’ve had since 1915.”

Blair also echoed Clark’s views on Putin: “He’s not hard to understand. He said the collapse of the Soviet empire is the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th century. That’s what he says, that’s what he thinks, that’s what he believes,” the prime minister said.

Bringing the talk home for the mostly financial audience, Clark said: “Don’t wait for the next war [the title of Clark’s new book]. We’ve created … hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives based on low interest rates. When will we get away from QE? The answer is never,” he said, predicting another round of global financial crisis.

But for Japan’s state minister for foreign affairs, military troubles are the more imminent threat:

“If [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong-un pushes the [nuclear] button, it’s 7 minutes away to my country.”