David Miliband: A Good Genie Is Afoot.(The Last Word)(Interview)

It was a busy week for David Miliband, Great Britain's youthful new foreign secretary . On Tuesday, the 42-year-old addressed the Labour Party conference, acknowledging the successes and "scars" from 10 years of Labour government and saying that Britain must strengthen its links with the United States and the international community to address the worlds' problems. Europe, he added,

should avoid institutional navel gazing and look "to the problems beyond its borders that define insecurity within our borders." Two days later he addressed the U.N. General Assembly, warning that rising inequality is both "morally offensive" and "dangerous" to global stability and prosperity. In a discussion with NEWSWEEK editors, he elaborated on his view that three key issues -- inequality, terror and climate change -- are threats the world must come to terms with. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How would you rate Europe's performance in coming to grips with the internal security threat from terrorism? It seems there is a wide variation in the way governments are acknowledging that threat.

Miliband: It is true that it's very patchy. These German and Danish arrests [of alleged Al Qaeda cells] are interesting because on the security problem they've really done very well. The French have always had a very different approach to the integration of Muslim communities. You go through the suburbs of Paris and you really worry about the ghettoization and the problems it is posing. However, you haven't got French suicide bombers, and we've got British suicide bombers. So there's a dose of humility that goes along with it. In Europe I'm now saying to people, "Look, whatever you've thought about Iraq in 2002 and 2003, you've got to get into a different way [of thinking] now." The French foreign minister has been to Baghdad, the Swedish foreign minister has been to Baghdad. But there are some leading European commissioners who haven't. I just said "Look, go to Baghdad." It's a political statement and gives political credibility to the process.

There are suggestions that U.S.-British relations are much cooler under Gordon Brown than they were under Tony Blair.

I don't accept the "cooler" description. Gordon is a different person, but he is passionate about the transatlantic relationship. He engaged deeply with President Bush at Camp David. I said, at the party conference, and got applause for it, that this is a relationship based on shared values. People clapped, partly because they believe in the shared values.

At the party conference, you seemed keen to draw a line under the Blair foreign policy and make it very clear things were different now.