The Necessity of Tony Blair

Bull Moose has a great piece on the moral leadership of Tony Blair. Moose points out how Blair has been steadfast in the fight against jihadism, even moreso than some of our own leaders. In many ways, the War on Terror is an example of muscular liberalism. Tony Blair is a true progressive, so he gets it, infinitely more than Bush does. Blair has risked his political future on this, and holds the line despite being highly unpopular, even in his own Party. Two things have always amazed me about Blair: The fact that he was willing to strike against the Taliban in Afghanistan even if we didn't, and the fact that in past speeches, he has a made a better case for American leadership in the world than many Americans. Here's an excerpt from the piece:

And courageous leaders like Blair are viciously slandered by Lilliputians who would rather see America and the West defeated than genuine progressives vindicated. Some of the the lefties who trumpet their own moral superiority increasingly find themselves objectively serving the interests of the Zarqawis who seek to drive us out of Iraq by weakening our will. They virtually celebrate every American setback while remaining mute in the face of the homicidal terror of the enemy. These are the same folks who lament the failure of America to intervene in Darfur, but would be just fine with leaving Iraq to become a ethnic cleansing mass killing field.

Read the whole thing.