Word: blaire
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...Internet bars. The presumed birthplace of King David and Jesus of Nazareth, a flash point in the continuing and never-ending struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, and a city with an increasingly restive Muslim majority, Bethlehem was the perfect place to sit down and talk with Tony Blair about his new interfaith initiative and his personal odyssey of faith...
...That is true. But it is also true that if Blair's foundation is to take off, it will need support from Europe-and especially from his home country-as much as from the U.S. That is by no means assured. By the time he left office, Blair was deeply unpopular in Britain, and not just because of Iraq; Britons were tired of what they saw as a government of constant spin, tinged, toward the end, with sleaze. Though Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, has seen his own popularity plummet, there is no sign yet that Blair's reputation...
...Blair is always careful to downplay the role his faith played in complex matters of life and death, such as the invasion of Iraq. "You don't put a hotline up to God and get the answers," he says. At the same time, he plainly thinks his faith has helped him make tough decisions. "The worst thing in politics," he says, "is when you're so scared of losing support that you don't do what you think is the right thing. What faith can do is not tell you what is right but give you the strength...
...nearly 25 years of watching Blair, I've never thought that was a fair judgment, and having spent time with him in the past few weeks, I'm more persuaded than ever that it's wrong. Blair is not without faults. In the Middle East, where he has so far achieved little concrete success as the Quartet's envoy, it is uncomfortably common to hear the claim that he spreads himself too thin. He can, no question, come across as a bit cocksure in the rightness of his judgments. But he swims in deep waters. He is convinced, he told...
...Perhaps most important, his faith is not exclusive. Blair has a generosity of spirit that enables him to see that beliefs other than his can contribute to mutual goals. "I think he knows he has a steep incline ahead on a long journey," says Bono. "And I don't think it will be his considerable powers of persuasion or his winning smile that will have him seated at a table breaking bread, or taboos. It will be the true respect in which he holds the other pilgrims...