There is a very particular, if narrow-minded, logic to his sitting on his hands whilst the world degenerates into chaos.

Ultimately the odds were never in Mr Blair’s favour. He took on an impossible and thankless task

Whether it is through well-intentioned, idealistic, though incompetent bumbling, or otherwise a calculated and strategically orchestrated effort, Barack Obama’s foreign policy has brought the Western world to the brink of decline and irrelevance. Whatever grand statements he gave at his West Point speech, they do not reflect the realities on the ground of his policies.

On Wednesday, 23 April, 2014, the HIC was invited to attend Tony Blair's keynote speech on the Middle East and North Africa at Bloomberg HQ, London. The central argument Blair made, which underpinned his later analysis, was the assertion that religious extremism - specifically radical Islam - is the single greatest threat to global security today and one which is not abating, but growing in reach, power and willingness to commit acts of incredible violence.

Within the communities that perform it, the practice is usually very deep-rooted and driven by an interwoven set of factors including custom, religion, tradition, superstition and misguided beliefs about hygiene.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia’s influence in the Middle East has been greatly undermined and its policy has changed in emphasis and intensity. While during the clash between the two superpowers – the US and the Soviet Union – the Middle East was part of its ideological battlefield

Human rights are universal, but they are yet to be universalised. Transparent sovereignty is the answer. Whilst being a legalistic term that tends to evoke groans, apprehensive of impending, inevitable boredom, the word ‘sovereignty’ is central to any debate on whether humanitarian intervention in the internal affairs of a State is appropriate or justifiable.

The U.S. will become the world's largest producer of oil before 2020, a net oil exporter by 2030, and will achieve energy self-sufficiency by 2035. In light of pending energy self-sufficiency, a change in U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East should not come as a surprise