British Prime Minister Tony Blair tonight called for a worldwide, multi-faith war of ideas against global terrorism.
Smarting from domestic pressures, Mr Blair turned his attention to international affairs marking the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein and put the county on the brinkk of civil war.
He defended his "activist" foreign policy and scorned those who opposed intervention in Iraq or Afghanistan as pursuing a "doctrine of benign inactivity".
Mr Blair insisted: "This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction."
He also characterised it as "a struggle between democracy and violence" and said: "We must fight the ideas of the extremists, not just their actions."
The Prime Minister, in the first of a series of three foreign policy speeches setting out his personal philosophy, stressed his "fundamental point" was that: "'We' is not the West. 'We' are as much Muslim as Christian or Jew or Hindu.
"'We' are those who believe in religious tolerance, openness to others, to democracy, liberty and human rights administered by secular courts."
He met head-on the issue of domestic extremism fuelling terrorists such as the July 7th London bombers.
"There is an interesting debate going on inside government today about how to counter extremism in British communities. Ministers have been advised never to use the term Islamist extremists.
"It will give offence. It is true. It will. There are those - perfectly decent-minded people - who say the extremists who commit these acts of murder are not true Muslims.
"And, of course, they are right. They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian.
"But, unfortunately, he is still a Protestant bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it."
He complained that his opponents' view "in respect of radical Islam insists that to say what is true is to provoke, to show insensitivity, to demonstrate the same qualities of purblind ignorance that leads us to suppose that Muslims view democracy or liberty in the same way we do".
Mr Blair also sounded a warning to Iran over its support for Middle East terrorist groups, linking groups such as Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the perpetrators of the in massacre.
Iranian support for such groups should not be ignored because it is hostile to Al Qaeda, he said.
PA