Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

In his speech on foreign policy last night, Tony Blair memorably said: "This is not a clash between civilisations, it is a clash about civilisation." Then there was this anecdote: "Shortly after Saddam fell, I met in London a woman who after years of exile — and there were 4 million such exiles — had returned to Iraq to participate in modern politics there. A couple of months later, she was assassinated, one of the first to be so. I cannot tell what she would say now. But I do know it would not be: give up. She would not want her sacrifice for her beliefs to be in vain."

Commenting on the speech, Paul Reynolds, the BBC's World Affairs Correspondent says: "Mr Blair's critics will see all this as simply an attempt to justify the unjustifiable and the illegal — the invasion of Iraq." The issue that "Mr Blair's critics" need to address is this, though: If Saddam was illegally removed from power; he is entitled to be restored to power. But, oddly enough, I don't hear Paul Reynolds or the anti-war crowd making that argument.

But then, they don't have any arguments as convincing as this: "It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other." Tony Blair.