The Archbishop of Canterbury has challenged former Prime Minister Tony Blair on how he deals with guilt in a series for BBC Radio 4.
Mr Blair, a Catholic, told the Rev. Justin Welby his faith helped him deal with the knowledge that people didn’t like him.
The program, part of The Archbishop Interviews series, included questions about the Iraq War, Afghanistan and the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement.
“I had to do what I felt was the right thing to do,” Blair said.
He said the decisions he made were complicated and warned people not to trust politicians who told them “simple slogans”.
Mr Blair also addressed the conflict in Ukraine in the interview, which was taped on the morning of the Russian invasion.
“It’s massively against our interests to have a country, an independent sovereign country on Europe’s doorstep that’s essentially being 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 taking action to prevent something from happening that will ultimately affect you.”
He denied that it was a political leader’s role to go around the world and “eradicate evil”.
But he added: “When you are faced with a situation where you believe your country’s interests require you to stop something bad, it is important that you stand up and take the necessary action to do so to stop. “
Mr Blair defended his decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq alongside US President George W. Bush.
“People often say about Iraq or Afghanistan that I made the wrong decision, but you have to do what you think is right,” he said.
“Whether you’re right or not is another matter. With these really big decisions you don’t know what all the different components are and you have to follow your own instincts at the end.”
He admitted he “may have been wrong” about Iraq and Afghanistan, but insisted, “I had to do what I felt was the right thing to do.”
When asked about the dislike some people now have for him because of these decisions, Mr Blair said: “The strongest thing about the Christian faith, to me – perhaps one could say more broadly about religious belief – is that you acknowledge something bigger and bigger more important than yourself.
“I find that I often have more in common with someone who is of Muslim faith, for example, because they are also believers than with someone who just looks [faith] as hocus-pocus.”
When asked about guilt, Mr Blair said: “You have to be willing to admit when you’ve done something wrong. I think in politics you can do that. I think people will respect you more if you do that.”
But he added: “The problem with politics is that in a world that is actually very complex, people are looking for simplicity.”
He said people should “at least respect the fact of this complexity, rather than reducing it to what is a simple slogan.
“Because the politicians you really shouldn’t trust are the people who stand up and tell you the simple slogans.”
Listen to the Archbishop’s interviews on Sunday 6 March at 1.30pm on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
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