TONY Blair has defended the Egyptian army's decision to remove the country's first elected leader.
The former Prime Minister – now Middle East peace envoy for the US, Russia, the EU and the United Nations – said the alternative would have been chaos.
Mr Blair said that, while he supported democracy, the Mursi administration had failed to deliver. The world must engage with the interim government to help it deliver needed economic reforms as "we can't afford for Egypt to collapse", he said.
Mr Blair added: "I am a strong supporter of democracy. But democratic government doesn't on its own mean effective government."
However, his comments were criticised by Tory ex-foreign secretary Douglas Hurd. He said: "Tony Blair leaps in before he's thought things through. We need to keep our heads and not rush to judgment."
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