PLYMOUTH, Jan 12: Prime Minister Tony Blair, defending his interventionist policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, said on Friday Britain should carry on influencing world affairs through fighting wars as well as peacekeeping.

Mr Blair said while public opinion might be divided, it was up to politicians to figure out how to gain the consent of voters to do both.

“Terrorism can't be defeated by military means alone, true. But it can't be defeated without it,” Mr Blair said in a speech at a naval base in Plymouth, southwest England.

War has become more controversial since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, he said, with campaigns waged against a militant worldwide movement based on a misreading of Islam, rather than conventional troops fighting conventional battles.

Mr Blair's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq has proven deeply unpopular at home where concern is also mounting about growing British casualties in Afghanistan.

The prime minister has said he will step down this year in part because of public anger over his unswerving support for President George W. Bush's military intervention in Iraq.

He reiterated on Friday that he believed it was `ludicrous’ to suggest ousting Saddam Hussein or the Taliban had inflamed Muslim opinion. Mr Blair also said rolling 24-hour media cover broadcasting instant, often gruesome images also complicated the task politicians face persuading voters the battle is worth fighting.

“Public opinion will be divided, feel the cost is too great, the campaign too long ... They will be constantly bombarded by the propaganda of the enemy, often quite sympathetically treated by their own media, to the effect that it's really all 'our', that is, the West's fault,” Mr Blair added.

He said there was a risk “politicians decide it's all too difficult and default to an un-stated, passive disengagement, that doing the right thing slips almost unconsciously into doing the easy thing.”

Mr Blair has also faced criticism from military commanders who say British forces are under-funded and overstretched.

Mr Blair said he wanted to maintain a foreign policy that kept the American alliance strong and for Britain to fight terrorism wherever it may be and champion Middle East peace.—Reuters