Blair describes Islamists as 'regressive and wicked'

In his interview with BBC, marking the publication of his memoirs Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister, who currently serves as a Special Envoy of the International Quartet for Meddle East Peace, described radical Islamists as "regressive, wicked and backward-looking.” 

Tony Blair said that Iran is one of the biggest state sponsors of radical Islam and it is necessary to prevent Iran by any means from developing a nuclear weapon.

Blair pointed that radical Islamists stand from a position that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified and is justified by use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

British politician, under whose leadership Britain went into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, denied that his own policies had fuelled radicalism.

When asked what he thinks about the argument that Chechens, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans were resisting occupation, he said Western polices were designed to confront radical Islamists because they were "regressive, wicked and backward-looking.”

The aim of al-Qaeda in Iraq was "not to get American troops out of Baghdad [but] to destabilise a government the people of Iraq have voted for", he told the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones in interview.

Blair said that his view of foreign policy had changed after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He said: “After 11 September, rightly or wrongly, I felt the calculus of risk had changed. There is the most enormous threat from the combination of this radical extreme movement and the fact that, if they could, they would use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.”

"You can't take a risk with that happening," he said.

Blair said he was agonizing over the challenge how to respond to radical Islam and said that he still had doubts that he was right. He described these issues as “difficult” and added: "This extremism is so deep that in the end they have to know that they're facing a stronger will than theirs."