Despite everything, we will miss you Tony

When Tony Blair announced his intention to step down, I had mixed feelings, much along the lines of Glenn Reynolds' succint remarks:

I was never a fan of Blair in general, and before 9/11 would have been delighted to see him go. I've never liked the soft totalitarianism that Labour has championed, and to a large degree implemented, in Britain: Cameras everywhere, political correctness, gun confiscation -- and yet a diminished ability to actually maintain public order.
On the other hand -- and it's a big other hand -- I did, along with many others, value Blair's clarity on the subject of Islamic terror, and his pro-American sentiments, which were the exception rather than the rule in Old Europe. Blair was a beacon in that regard, and we needed him. I'll miss that, but honestly we're short of clarity on this side of the Atlantic, too. And I suspect we'll wind up missing that even more than Tony Blair's.

In this regard, the MSM and popular culture on both sides of the Atlantic have utterly failed to illustrate and promote the moral clarity and intellectual honesty that are going to be necessary for the survival of the West. This is underlined by a recent comment the PM himself wrote recently for the Daily Telegraph (Australia):

I was stopped by someone the other week who said it was not surprising there was so much terrorism in the world when we invaded their countries (meaning Afghanistan and Iraq). No wonder Muslims felt angry.
I said to him: tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a UN-supervised democratic process.
And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims.
Why aren't they angry about the people doing the killing? The odd thing about the conversation is I could tell it was the first time he'd heard this argument.

Stunning.