Blair: Crisis cannot be blamed on 2003 invasion

Tony Blair has been criticised after claiming the violent insurgency in Iraq is not the result of the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

In a renewed call for military action, the former British prime minister said the crisis unfolding in the country was instead the “predictable” result of the West’s failure to intervene in Syria.

But his comments have met with scathing criticism from figures across the political spectrum, including his former deputy prime minister John Prescott and ex-international development secretary Clare Short, who resigned from her post over Iraq.

In an eight-page essay on his website, Mr Blair — now a Middle East peace envoy — rejected as “bizarre” arguments that Iraq would be more stable and peaceful today if the US-backed war had not happened.

He added Iraq was “in mortal danger”, pinning the blame on the sectarianism of the Nouri al-Maliki government and the spread of Syria’s brutal three-year civil war.

“The choices are all pretty ugly, it is true. But for three years we have watched Syria descend into the abyss and as it is going down, it is slowly but surely wrapping its cords around us, pulling us down with it,” he wrote.

He made clear it did not mean another invasion, insisting there was a range of responses between troops on the ground and doing nothing at all.

“I understand all the reasons following Afghanistan and Iraq why public opinion was so hostile to involvement,” Mr Blair said.

“Action in Syria did not and need not be as in those military engagements. But every time we put off action, the action we will be forced to take will be ultimately greater.”

Mr Blair reiterated his regret over loss of life during the conflict, but insisted removing Saddam had been the right thing to do.

Reacting to the essay, Ms Short said Mr Blair had been “absolutely, consistently wrong, wrong, wrong” on the issue, and branded him a “complete American neocon”.

She criticised the “deceit” over the decision to invade, and added: “More bombing will not solve it, it will just exacerbate it.”

Mr Prescott said further intervention risked a return to the Crusades, adding: “I don’t agree with Tony as I didn’t then.

“He says we do it (intervene) where there isn’t open economy or open society. What he means is western democracy.”

Ukip leader Nigel Farage dismissed Mr Blair as an “embarrassment” who should hold his tongue and added he is opposed to Western military intervention in Iraq or Syria.

“The lesson is not, as Mr Blair implies, that the West should intervene in Syria, let alone once more in Iraq. The lesson is that the West should declare an end to the era of military intervention abroad,” he said.

Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond added: “No reinterpretation of history will absolve the former prime minister of a direct line of responsibility for this sequence of disasters.”