Boris Johnson, Britain’s foreign secretary, will argue that Western military intervention is not to blame for the rise of Islamist extremism in a speech designed to lay out the UK’s policy on countering terrorism.
He will say Wednesday that Islamist terrorism can have the “addictive power of crack cocaine” and will blame repressive states for fostering terrorism.
Speaking the day after US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Mr Johnson will say blaming foreign intervention for the rise of Islamist extremists fails to recognise that terrorists had attacked targets in Sweden, Belgium and Finland which had no history of activity in the Middle East.
“We will win when we understand that “we” means not just us in the West but the hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who share the same hopes and dreams…. who are equally determined to beat this plague,” he will say according to comments released before his speech in London.
