Tony Blair has said he does not regret leading Britain to war in Iraq when he was Prime Minister and has called on the world to take on and defeat Islamic extremists. He believes that, without intervention, the problem will continue to grow in countries such as Afghanistan.

He called for a battle to be waged against militant Islam similar to that fought against revolutionary communism.

In an address last night to a forum on religion and politics in Chicago, Mr Blair said that the world today faced a struggle posed by "an extreme and misguided form of Islam", which threatened the majority of Muslims as well as non-Muslims.

"Our job is simple: it is to support and partner 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."

The struggle could not be won "without our active and wholehearted participation," he said.

Mr Blair was speaking almost ten years to the day since he gave an address in Chicago at the height of the Kosovo crisis when he set out what he described as a "doctrine of international community" that sought to justify intervention, including military intervention, not only when a nation's interests are directly engaged but also where there exists a humanitarian crisis or gross oppression of a civilian population.

The speech was criticised widely at the time as hopelessly idealistic and even dangerous.

Blair has said the case for using military force to topple oppressive regimes is as strong as it ever was - despite events in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said intervention was needed to tackle the growing "menace" of Islamic "extremism" across the Middle East.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6153607.ece