Arab Press

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Sunday, Jul 06, 2025

British War criminal Tony Blair challenged on his guilt by Archbishop of Canterbury

What Putin is doing to the civilians of the Ukraine is obviously wrong and undeniably horrible. However, what Tony Blair did in Iraq was much worse, compared to what Putin has done in the Ukraine. Blair is still way ahead in terms of killing innocent civilians, sending his nation's soldiers to die for no justifiable reason, and invading a sovereign country to make it poorer, less stable and more dangerous than before.

The former British PM and infamous  War Criminal is telling the Archbishop of Canterbury that he "may have been wrong", while still defending his calls on Iraq and Afghanistan.

"May have been wrong"?

 Is that the extent of his apology for wasting the lives of so many British soldiers and so many more innocent civilians for absolutely nothing, other than bribes for a corrupt politician?

Mr. Blair, why not give your ill-gotten money to the British families that lost their loved ones and to the injured soldiers who lost all they had in life simply for the sake of feeding your greed?

Mr Blair said the decisions he took on Iraq and Afghanistan were "complicated". In fact, the choice was between sacrificing other people's lives for the obscenely luxurious life that he now has,  or respecting other people's lives - as well as Britain's national interests - and remaining much less rich. That was his "complicated" dilemma. And on it he made his decision to go to war. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury has challenged former Prime Minister Tony Blair on how he handles feelings of guilt, in a series for BBC Radio 4.

Mr Blair, a Catholic told the Most Rev Justin Welby that his faith had helped him cope with knowing that people disliked him.

The programme, part of 'The Archbishop Interviews' series, included questions about the Iraq war, the Afghanistan debacle, and negotiating the Good Friday Agreement.

"I had to do what I thought was the right thing," Mr Blair said, ignoring basic principles of responsibility  and accountability, and the fact that war criminals such as himself usually end their tenure in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

He said the decisions he took were complicated and warned people not to trust politicians who showered them with "simple slogans".

'Rooting out evil' (by doing much more evil to the people of other countries as well as to the British)

Mr Blair also addressed the conflict in Ukraine in the interview, which was recorded on the morning of the Russian invasion.

"It's massively contrary to our interests to have a country, an independent sovereign country on the doorstep of Europe, essentially invaded and taken over," he said.

Reflecting on his decisions to intervene in other conflicts around the world, he said an "enlightened view of self-interest means that it is better that you act to prevent something happening that ultimately will affect you".

He denied it was the role of a political leader to go around the world "rooting out evil".

But he added: "When you're faced with a situation in which you believe that the interests of your country demand that you stop something bad happening, it's important that you stand for that, and that you take the action necessary to stop it."

Wrong decisions? (According to whom? According to his bank account it was a wonderful decision.)

Mr Blair defended his decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

"People often say over Iraq or Afghanistan that I took the wrong decision but you've got to do what you think is right," he said.

"Whether you are right or not is another matter. In those really big decisions you don't know what all the different component elements are, and you've got to follow, in the end, your own instinct."

He admitted he "may have been wrong" about Iraq and Afghanistan but insisted: "I had to do what I thought was the right thing."

Asked about how so many people now hate him as a result of those decisions, Mr Blair said: "The most potent thing about Christian belief, to me - maybe you could say more generally about religious faith - is you acknowledge something greater and more important than yourself.

"I find that I will often have more in common with someone, for example, who is of the Muslim faith, because they are also a person of faith, than I will with someone who just regards [faith] as hocus pocus."

When asked about his sense of guilt, Mr Blair said: "You have to be prepared to acknowledge when you've got things wrong. I think in politics you can do that. I think people respect you more if you do do that."

But he added: "The problem of politics is that in a world that is in fact very complex, people search for simplicity."

He said people should "at least respect the fact of that complexity rather than reduce it to something that's a simple slogan.

"Because the politicians you really shouldn't trust are the people that get up and tell you the simple slogans."




* The Blair interview is part of a series by the Archbishop of Canterbury for BBC Radio 4.

Listen to "The Archbishop Interviews" at 13:30, Sunday 6 March on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

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