Blair denies that the west 'didn't cause Iraq crisis'. Should we blame Sadam then?

The 2003 invasion of Iraq is not to blame for the violent insurgency now gripping the country, former UK prime minister Tony Blair has said.

He told the BBC there would still be a "major problem" in Iraq even without the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

He insisted the current crisis was an issue that "affects us all" and urged more western intervention in the area.

Critics have rejected the comments as "bizarre" with one accusing Mr Blair of "washing his hands of responsibility".

Shias in Iraq have been urged to take up arms against the Sunni militants

Mr Blair said the idea that Iraq today would be stable if Saddam had been left in place was "simply not credible".

"Even if you'd left Saddam in place in 2003, then when 2011 happened - and you had the Arab revolutions going through Tunisia and Libya and Yemen and Bahrain and Egypt and Syria - you would have still had a major problem in Iraq," he said.

"Indeed, you can see what happens when you leave the dictator in place, as has happened with Assad now. The problems don't go away.

"So, one of the things I'm trying to say is - you know, we can rerun the debates about 2003 - and there are perfectly legitimate points on either side - but where we are now in 2014, we have to understand this is a regional problem, but it's a problem that will affect us."

He also called for some form of intervention in Syria, warning that inaction would result in a threat to UK soil.

Michael Stephens, an expert on Iraq and Syria for the Royal United Services Institute, said the Iraq War had a part to play in the recent upsurge in violence.

'Unending violence'

"I think Mr Blair is washing his hands of responsibility," he said. "But at the same time, I do agree with him that we can't just ignore this.

"We do have some kind of role to play in terms of trying to make sure that both Iraq and Syria do not fragment and just move on into sort of unending violence."

Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's ambassador to the US from 1997 to 2003, said the handling of the campaign against Saddam Hussein was "perhaps the most significant reason" for the current sectarian violence.

"We are reaping what we sowed in 2003. This is not hindsight. We knew in the run-up to war that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would seriously destabilise Iraq after 24 years of his iron rule," he said in the Mail on Sunday.

Syria is three years into a civil war in which tens of thousands of people have died and millions more have been displaced.

In August last year, a chemical attack near the capital Damascus killed hundreds of people.

In the same month, UK MPs rejected the idea of air strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to deter the use of chemical weapons.

In a 2,800-word essay on his website, Mr Blair said the violence in Iraq was the "predictable and malign effect" of inaction in Syria.

And he warned that every time the UK puts off action, "the action we will be forced to take will be ultimately greater".

Thousands of Shias are reported to have volunteered to help halt the advance of ISIS

"My plea is you do not need to engage as we did in Iraq or Afghanistan, but you need to recognise that we have interests in this," Mr Blair told the BBC.

"And these people, if they are allowed to grow, these extremist groups in the end will pose a threat for us within our own borders."

Clare Short, a former Labour minister who resigned over the Iraq War, said Mr Blair was "absolutely, consistently wrong, wrong, wrong".

"He has become a complete American neo-con, who thinks military action, bombing, attacking will solve the problems and it's actually making more and more tension, anger, division and bitterness in the Middle East," she told Sky News.

Security analyst Professor Eric Groves said he found Mr Blair's position to be "bizarre".

"So saying this is a result of our non-intervention, if Mr Blair really thinks that going into Syria and basically fighting everyone was going to lead to a better situation, I think his views are somewhat bizarre actually. I can see very little logic in this."

But former Middle East minister Alistair Burt told the same programme there was a "great danger" of trying to understand the situation by going back to "one root cause" and "blaming what was done in the past".

'Bizarre views'

He called for a group of moderate Arab states to try to tackle the problem - something he said could not be done by the West.

The Sunni insurgents, from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), regard Iraq's Shia majority as "infidels".

Iraqi government forces are reportedly holding back an advance by the militants north of Baghdad.

A number of towns have been retaken from the rebels, but they still control the key cities of Tikrit and Mosul.

A US aircraft carrier has been deployed to the Gulf in response to the escalating violence.

The capital Baghdad is a tense place following the reverses for Iraqi government forces

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by British and US forces, on the basis that it had "weapons of mass destruction", has come back into focus as a result of the insurgency in the country.

The Iraq War has been the subject of several inquiries, including the Chilcot inquiry - which began in 2009 - into the UK's participation in military action against Saddam Hussein and its aftermath.