Blair calls for marshall plan for Mideast

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has stressed the need for a new "Marshall Plan" for the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring. He was referring in an interview with the "Times" newspaper published here on Thursday to the economic aid which the US gave to western Europe (and offered to Stalin's half) in the late 1940s. He said the revolution in Egypt is ''in the balance'' - and jobs and growth must be created or radical Islam could find itself on the rise. Under the Marshall Plan the U.S. gave 13 billion dollars to Europe between 1948 and 1951 to fund the post-war rebuilding. Last month 20 billion dollars was pledged to the Mideast at the G8 summit which Blair was at in Deauville, France. He said that the West was going to have to be ''quite assertive'' if democracy and stability was to emerge.