Manchester, England ? Gordon Brown, Britain’s next prime minister, on Sunday promised a foreign policy that recognizes that defeating terrorism is as much a struggle of ideas as a military battle – a lesson he said was drawn from Iraq.

As he took control of the governing Labour Party from Tony Blair, Brown said Britain would “learn lessons that need to be learned.”

Britain’s future foreign policy will “reflect the truth that to isolate and defeat terrorist extremism now involves more than military force,” Brown told a conference of party members in Manchester, northern England.

“It is also a struggle of ideas and ideals that in the coming years will be waged and won for hearts and minds here at home and round the world.”

The unpopularity of the Iraq war, and Britain’s role in it, have dogged Blair through the last years of his leadership.

Brown, a 56-year-old Scot, has dismissed claims he would seek to loosen ties with President Bush to appease rank-and-file party members angered over the Iraq war, saying it is in Britain’s national interest to have a strong relationship with the U.S. president.

Blair steps down as prime minister on Wednesday.