Jack Straw

Jack Straw has said Britain have a key role in uniting Europe and America around the cause of spreading democracy in the Middle East.

The foreign secretary said that to promote democracy, the UK and Europe as a whole would have to work closely with the United States.

Speaking at a Fabian Society event on Thursday, he said that politicians on the left should not object to the goal, even though they may have disagreed with the war in Iraq.

"Faced with an American government of the right promoting a vision of how to change the world for the better, many on the left have become the staunchest advocates of the status quo," said Straw.

"For them, President Bush's commitment to promoting freedom and democracy is simplistic; misguided; or as simply a veil for more sinister motives.

"The traditional positions of realists and idealists seem to have been reversed."

The foreign secretary warned fellow left-wingers against settling in to a "comfort zone" of criticising American power.

"The left has always believed in the power of politics to change things for the better - and in the extension of freedom and democracy," he argued.

"Today we have a better chance than ever to promote that in the Middle East.

"When an American president states that 'the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world', we should hear the continuing of the great tradition of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and many others."