US military action in Iraq and Afghanistan was part of a policy of "values change" rather than "regime change", Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a keynote policy address.
President George W. Bush's staunchest supporter made the comments as he likened the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza to the wider issues of global extremism and the clash between moderate and reactionary Islam.
"Ever since September 11, the US has embarked on a policy of intervention in order to protect its and our future security," he told about 2,000 guests at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.
"Hence Afghanistan. Hence Iraq. Hence the broader Middle East initiative in support of moves towards democracy in the Arab world.
"The point about these interventions, however, military and otherwise, is that they were not just about changing regimes but changing the values systems governing the nations concerned.
"The banner was not actually 'regime change', it was 'values change'."
Britain was part of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, initially arguing that action was needed against former president Saddam Hussein because of his acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Regime change became a familiar mantra from both London and Washington when no WMD were found.
In his speech Tuesday, which called for a global reappraisal to tackling global extremism, using "soft" power as well as military means, Blair said: "We could have chosen security as the battleground. But we didn't.
"We chose values. We said we didn't want another Taliban or a different Saddam.
"Rightly, in my view, we realised that you can't defeat a fanatical ideology just by imprisoning or killing its leaders; you have to defeat its ideas."
Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be controversial for Blair around the world and particularly back home: 115 British soldiers have died in Iraq since 2003 and nine in southern Afghanistan since the start of this year.