From: Guardian.co.uk - Nick Cohen - Tony Blair's Moral Decline, May 27, 2012
In 2007, John Humphrys of the BBC interviewed Blair about the oppression in Iran.
Blair: "There is global struggle in which we need a policy based on democracy, on freedom and on justice…"
Humphrys: "Our idea of democracy?"
Blair: "I didn't know that there was another idea of democracy…"
Humphrys: "If I may say so, that's naive…"
Blair: "The one basic fact about democracy, surely, is that you can get rid of your government if you don't like them."
Humphrys: "The Iranians elected their own government and we're now telling them…"
Blair: "Hold on, John, something like 60% of the candidates were excluded."
I do not pick on Humphrys because he was an exceptionally wicked man, but because his approach was so depressingly commonplace. Iranians and other lesser breeds could not expect the rights we enjoyed, and it was "naive to think otherwise".
Blair replied in admirably plain language. His commitment to democracy and human rights was absolute.
Moreover, it was universal: if free elections are good enough for Britain, they are good enough for Iran and no weasel words about theocrats having their "own" version of democracy can be allowed to pass uncontested.