Video: Tony Blair on The Daily Show, part two

Tony Blair has explained the "inexplicable" attraction of George W. Bush: he likes him.

The former prime minister made a high-profile US television appearance on The Daily Show last night during which he was quizzed on the Iraq invasion, the War on Terror and his decision to start teaching at Yale University.

At one point, the host, Jon Stewart, said to him: "Your relationship with George Bush seems .. inexplicable."

Mr Blair replied: "Here's something I find always goes down well, particularly back home: I like him."

Mr Stewart retorted: "I would probably like him too, if he wasn't in charge of me."

Pressed on the Iraq conflict, Mr Blair admitted that he had been "shocked" by how hard the aftermath of invasion had been and at one point became defensive under Mr Stewart's smiling inquisition, snapping: "None of this is easy, ok?"

But Mr Stewart showed appreciation for his insistence that he "never took the view that people who disagreed with it (the war) were stupid or misguided or had bad intentions", quipping:

"You could never run this country buddy, I'll tell you that much."

He insisted that radical groups like al Qaida, Hamas, and Hezbollah were linked, maintaining that the battle in Iraq was the same struggle between democracy and radical Islamism that was going on in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine and elsewhere. But he laughingly dismissed Mr Stewart's suggestion that those countries were next in line for military action.

The pair also discussed differing attitudes to religion and politics in Britain and the US. Mr Blair admitted that his recent conversion to Catholicism "would have been complicated" if he had tried to do it during his premiership, adding: "In our country people regard it as something which is very private."

Mr Stewart drew wild applause when he gave his take on the struggle against terrorism.

"Nineteen people flew into the towers," he said. "It seems hard for me to imagine that we could go to war enough to make the world safe enough that 19 people wouldn't want to do harm to us. So it seems like we have to rethink a strategy that is less military based."

Leaning close to Mr Blair as the audience cheered, he confided "The tickets are free, that's why they're doing that."

But Mr Blair didn't appear only to discuss the war on terror - as with most talk show guests, he had somethng to plug. Today he embarks on an academic career, teaching a courswe at Yale entitled "Faith and Globalisation."

He had already discussed the course in an interview with the university's Yale Daily News, admitting: "I'm sort of a bit nervous for it, really.

"I was never a star student, and I'm coming along mixing with a whole lot of people who I'm sure are a whole lot more clever and smarter than I am."

Mr Blair said he was partly drawn to the university after his son Euan graduated from there earlier this year with a master's degree in international relations.

"The chance to actually come to such a great institution as Yale and be able to interact with students - for me, it's a tremendous privilege," he explained.

Mr Blair becomes the sixth former or current head of state to be interviewed on the show, which as become so influential that many Americans say it is their preferred source of news.

Mr Stewart has interviewed Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, the Bolivian President Evo Morales, and the former Mexican president Vicente Fox. In September 2006, Pervez Musharraf, then president of Pakistan, became the first sitting head of state to appear on the show.

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