The Right Honorable Tony Blair, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, spoke to a Chicago Council audience of nearly 1,400 on April 22, calling for policies of both “hard power” - the use of military force - and diplomatic “soft power” in fighting repressive regimes and religious extremism. Download Tony Blair's remarks (PDF) and event audio (70.0MB, MP3).

Blair spoke to The Chicago Council on Global Affairs as part of its spring 2009 Chicago and the World Forum series “Fault Lines of Faith? Religion and Politics in World Affairs.”

“The struggle faced by the world, including the majority of Muslims, is posed by an extreme and misguided form of Islam,” he said. “Our job is simple: it is to support and partner with those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating the extremists who don’t. But it can’t be done without our active and wholehearted participation.”

Blair said the struggle against religious extremism "is more akin to fighting revolutionary Communism than a discrete campaign such as the one which changed the Balkans a decade ago.” He identified “six elements to a successful strategy,” including the use of “hard power” when it is deemed necessary and a “broad” and “deep” “soft power strategy” that takes seriously the religious dimension of what in the past may have been simply referred to as political conflict . He also outlined the work of his organization, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, to advance religious engagement and understanding.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley introduced Blair, who last spoke in Chicago a decade ago during the Kosovo crisis.