David Gregory asked Blair if his failure to deal with this extremism a decade ago in Afghanistan and Iraq is to blame.

Blair corrected Gregory, noting that al Qaeda​ and their idelogy existed before 9/11, and that that ideology caused the terrorist attacks.

“We have to liberate ourselves from this thinking that somehow it’s our actions that have caused radical Islam,” Blair said. “You can carry on explaining all this by saying ‘it’s us, we provoked them, it’s really they’re trying to react against western imperialism’ – [but that’s] nonsense.” He said, for example, if military presence is the cause of terrorism in Iraq, then it should end as troops leave, but it hasn’t.