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Tony Blair: "Don't believe washing our hands of it and walking away will solve the problem"
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.
Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr, he said there would still be a "major problem" in the country even without the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
He insisted the current crisis was a "regional" issue that "affects us all".
Critics have rejected the comments as "bizarre" with one accusing Mr Blair of "washing his hands of responsibility".
"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," Mr Blair 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.
End Quote Tony BlairWhere the extremists are fighting, they have to be countered hard, with force"
"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."
Michael Stephens, an expert on Iraq and Syria for the Royal United Services Institute, said the Iraq War had "a lot to play - a part in this sort of fragmentation of Iraq".
'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 sectarian violence now gripping Iraq.
Iraqi forces hit back at militants
"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.
Writing on his website, the former prime minister warned that every time the UK puts off action, "the action we will be forced to take will be ultimately greater".
He said the current violence in Iraq was the "predictable and malign effect" of inaction in Syria.
"We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that 'we' have caused this," he wrote. "We haven't."
He said the takeover of Mosul by Sunni insurgents was planned across the Syrian border.
"Where the extremists are fighting, they have to be countered hard, with force," Mr Blair said.
'Bizarre views'The Sunni insurgents, from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), regard Iraq's Shia majority as "infidels".
After taking Mosul late on Monday, and then Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, ISIS militants pressed south into the ethnically divided Diyala province.
On Friday, they battled against Shia fighters near Muqdadiya - just 50 miles (80km) from Baghdad's city limits.
Reinforcements from both the Iraqi army and Shia militias have arrived in the city of Samarra, where fighters loyal to ISIS are trying to enter from the north.
Security analyst Professor Eric Groves said he found Mr Blair's position to be "bizarre".
He told the BBC that had the UK intervened in Syria, it would have been against the Assad regime, which ISIS is fighting.
"So therefore, intervening in Syria might well have actually been in the interests of the ISIS people," he said.
Prof Groves, of Liverpool Hope University, added: "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."
BBC political correspondent Gary O'Donoghue said there would be "many who take issue" with Mr Blair's comments.
Mike O'Brien, who was a foreign office minister in Mr Blair's government, also rejected the former prime minister's claims about the Iraq War.
"The future of Iraq depends on the Sunni having [a] stake," Mr O'Brien told BBC Radio 5 live's Sunday Breakfast programme.
"And that's what Barack Obama is saying. And that's why I think Tony is not quite right about this."
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.
Last month, the inquiry said details of the "gist" of talks between Tony Blair and former US president George Bush before the Iraq war are to be published.
Mr Blair has said he wants the Chilcot report to be published and he "resented" claims he was to blame for its slow progress.
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