Toppling Saddam Hussein bears some responsibility for today’s crisis in Iraq, Tony Blair has admitted.<\/p>\n
Mr Blair said it would be ‘absurd’ to argue the 2003 Iraq war had nothing to do with the chaos in the country today – as al-Qaeda inspired Isis fighters close in on Baghdad.<\/p>\n
The former Prime Minister’s admission comes just days a week after he claimed the US-American invasion was not to blame for the looming civil war in the country. He said it was the ‘predictable and malign effect’ of the crisis in Syria.<\/p>\n
But writing in the Financial Times today, Mr Blair said: ‘Of course the Iraq of 2014 bears, in part, the imprint of the removal of Saddam Hussein 11 years ago. To say otherwise, as a recent editorial in this newspaper implies that I do, would be absurd.’<\/p>\n
However, Mr Blair insisted the main cause of today’s crisis in Iraq is the civil war in Syria which the West has failed to stop.<\/p>\n
Mr Blair’s remarks came as the jihadist fighters in Iraq captured two border posts over the weekend – one along the frontier with Jordan and the other with Syria – considerably expanded territory under their control.<\/p>\n
The lightening offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant takes the group closer to its dream of carving out an Islamic state straddling both Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n