Tony Blair has called on the west to do more to help "liberal and democratic" elements in the Middle East and north Africa following the Arab spring – or risk the formation of new Islamist governments that are not "genuine" democracies.

Admitting countries such as Britain and the US had previously been "too reluctant to push dictatorships on a path to democracy", the former prime minister said they now had to be clearer on their view of democracy "because the trouble really in the region is the more religious and extreme elements are very well organised and the liberal and democratic types basically aren't".

Blair, the special envoy for the Quartet on the Middle East (the UN, US, EU and Russia), regretted previous failures to promote "a concept of evolutionary change", predicting the recent revolutions would cause quite a lot of difficulty, citing, as an example, Egyptian growth rates and tourism difficulties.

In an interview with the BBC Today programme, Blair said there was a battle between competing elements in the Middle East as to what constitutes democracy.

One was "what I would call liberal democratic elements, what I would call the sort of Google types who were initially out in Tahrir Square, the up and coming, aspiring kind of middle class people who want the same types of things we want, the freedoms we want.

"Then you have got this Islamist movement, in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is very well organised, and where frankly, it is not clear that they want the same things as us and it is not clear that the type of democracy they would create would be a genuine democracy."

Blair argued that the battle would be between those wanting a pluralist society, equal rights for men and women and a set of "open minded" social, economic and cultural attitudes and those who said "our religion really defines our politics, what we want is this concept of Islamic democracy".

Within that, there would be "quite moderate" and "quite extreme" people, "but I am not sure that either concept is really what I would mean by democracy."

On the Israeli-Palestinanian conflict, Blair urged Hamas to give up violence. "I think if Hamas were prepared to, at least, say: 'Look, so far as we are concerned, we will pursue our political objectives but by non-violent means,' I think that would give you a far greater opportunity of creating circumstances in which you get could get all the Palestinian parties in some sort of dialogue."