Blair blames Iran, Al-Qaeda for Iraq crisis

LONDON: Strongly defending armed interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that Al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed efforts were responsible for the current situation in Iraq.

"The current violence in Iraq was not caused by the 2003 invasion, but by al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed efforts to destabilise the country," Blair wrote in an article in 'The Economist.'

Dismissing as 'seductive but dangerous' the argument of critics of the British and US interventions in those two countries, he said Britain should be ready to use force again to prevent genocide, oppression and injustice.

"We should be prepared to intervene, if necessary militarily, to prevent genocide, oppression, the deep injustice too often inflicted on the vulnerable," said Blair, who is currently on his last trip to Africa.

Rejecting the argument that the invasions had made life worse for ordinary people in the two countries and opened up new fronts in the so-called war on terrorism, Blair said, "This is a seductive but dangerous argument. Work out what it really means."

"It means that because these reactionary and evil forces will fight hard, through terrorism, to prevent those countries and their people getting on their feet after the dictatorships are removed, we should leave the people under the dictatorship."

"It means our will to fight for what we believe in is measured by our enemy's will to fight us, but in inverse proportion. That is not a basis on which you ever win anything."

"Remove Al-Qaeda, remove the malign Iranian activity, and the situation would be changed, even transformed," he said.