Tony Blair has said the recent violent uprising by Islamic militants in Iraq is not a result of the 2003 US & UK led invasion of the country, but rather a failure to intervene in Syria.
Blair spoke publicly today for the first time since the major advances made by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group. The public appearances follow the publishing of an open letter covering the same issue, on his Faith Foundation website.
The former Prime Minister insists the 2003 invasion - which led to the toppling of Saddam Hussein and is seen now by many as the root of the internal conflict now threatening to tear Iraq apart – was not to blame for recent events.
"We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that 'we' have caused this. We haven't,” Blair said.
He thoroughly dismissed the idea that Iraq might be a more peaceful place had Saddam remained in power.
“It is a bizarre reading of the cauldron that is the Middle East today, to claim that but for the removal of Saddam, we would not have a crisis,” Blair said.
"The civil war in Syria with its attendant disintegration is having its predictable and malign effect. Iraq is now in mortal danger. The whole of the Middle East is under threat."
"What we now know from Syria is that Assad, without any detection from the west, was manufacturing chemical weapons. We only discovered this when he used them. We also know, from the final weapons inspectors' reports, that though it is true that Saddam got rid of the physical weapons, he retained the expertise and capability to manufacture them.
"Is it likely, knowing what we now know about Assad, that Saddam, who had used chemical weapons both against the Iranians in the 1980s war – that resulted in over a million casualties – and against his own people, would have refrained from returning to his old ways? Surely it is at least as likely that he would have gone back to them?"
“We can argue as to whether our policies at points have helped or not: and whether action or inaction is the best policy. But the fundamental cause of the crisis lies within the region not outside it," Blair said.
Blair was British Prime Minister in 2003 when US and UK troops invaded Iraq, soon toppling dictators Saddam Hussein. The invasion was justified on the basis that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. These claims later transpired to be false. In the aftermath Iraq has descended into the world’s deadliest country, with tens of thousands killed in sectarian violence.
ISIS took Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, on Monday. It represented the most significant move by the Sunni extremist group, and made credible the idea that Iraq might be about to fall into an all out civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
The last British troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011. In the interim however the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has taken a hardline sectarian approach that has alienated the Sunni minority in the country and ensured tacit support for ISIS – and often loose affiliations with other Sunni groups, including former allies of Saddam – among significant sections of the population.
"We have to put aside the differences of the past and act now to save the future," Blair said.
Blair went on to say that the use of force may be necessary. His words come as the Pentagon announced the dispatch of the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier to the Gulf, as a precautionary measure.
"Where the extremists are fighting, they have to be countered hard, with force,” Blair said.
