Labour deputy leadership candidate Peter Hain will today cite "lessons" from the Northern Ireland peace process in calling for "a fundamental re-balancing" of British foreign policy.
In a keynote address to an invited audience at Chatham House in London, Mr Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, will identify a set of "fundamental principles" he believes, if applied to other disputes across the world, "could help in the transition from conflict to peace".
Key to this, he will argue, will be the development of "political capacity" even where conflict is ongoing, by the identification and willingness to work with "key individuals and constructive forces on all sides . . . that will mean talking to 'the enemy'."
Mr Hain strictly observes the cabinet line that the terrorist threat posed by al-Qaeda is "fundamentally different" from that which existed in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
In language similar to that previously used by prime minister Tony Blair, Mr Hain will say of the al-Qaeda threat: "It is not rooted in political objectives capable of negotiation, but rather in a reactionary totalitarian ideology that is completely opposed to democracy, freedom and human rights. Negotiation with al-Qaeda and its foreign jihadists in Iraq is therefore politically and morally out of the question."
However, Mr Hain will cite "another important lesson from Northern Ireland" in contending that "just as legitimate grievances [ there] fuelled republican sympathies", so grievances in Iraq provide fertile territory for Iraqi militants. "Addressing people's grievances, as we did in Northern Ireland, can undercut the extremists who seek to inflame and exploit them . . ."
The official British government line is that negotiations with republicans became possible only after the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin dropped their "impossible" demand for British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. However, 10 Downing Street last night declined to comment on Mr Hain's speech as applied to either Northern Ireland or the Middle East.
He will contend that "there cannot be constructive dialogue" in conflict situations such as the Middle East "if there are inflexible and rigid preconditions".
Above all, he says, there is a need to "grip and micro-manage" a conflict at a high political level: "In the Middle East, for example, that conflict has not been gripped at a sufficiently high level over a sufficiently sustained period. Efforts and initiatives have come and gone and violence has returned to fill the vacuum . . ."
In respect of Iraq, Mr Hain will say: "There was a comprehensive lack of understanding of the sectarian forces and fault-lines present across the country. The problem was compounded, of course, by post-invasion policy failures."
With prime minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown on a fact-finding visit to Iraq, Mr Hain will say: "We and the government of Iraq have been keen to harness the influence of neighbouring powers, each of whom has an interest in the future stability of Iraq. This will need dialogue, including with Sunni and Shia representatives. It also requires a strategy to tackle the rise of Islamist extremism in Iraq."
Describing how the Northern Ireland peace process "brought to an end the longest running, and at times most violently fought political conflict in Europe", Mr Hain will identify the key principles that can in turn "inform the approach to conflict resolution across the world".