Tony Blair has said critics who believe the violence in Iraq today is a result of the 2003 invasion are "profoundly mistaken".
Speaking to Sky News' Dermot Murnaghan, he said the West's inability to get tough with Syria's Bashar al Assad and failure in Libya had allowed terrorism and chaos to spread across the Middle East.
Mr Blair says the 2003 invasion is not to blame The former Prime Minister said that had the UK not acted to get rid of Saddam Hussein 11 years ago the country would have been in a worst state than Syria now.
He said Britain had to "get involved" to end the crisis in the Middle East but he was not suggesting a "full-scale intervention" with troops on the ground like in 2003.
Mr Blair, who is now Middle East peace envoy, argued there was no way Britain could stay out of Syria because "ultimately, extremist groups also intend to target us".
He said security services in the UK, Germany and France now all say the greatest risk to those countries is jihadist fighters returning from Syria.
Mr Blair also took responsibility for the decision to go into Iraq in 2003 and said the situation in the country would have been the same had Saddam Hussein not been removed because the whole region had been hit by uprisings.
He said: "Some people will say 'well if we hadn't removed Saddam in 2003 we wouldn't have the problem today in Iraq and the reason I think that is profoundly mistaken is this: since 2011 there have been these Arab revolutions sweeping across the whole of the region - Tunisa, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, nextdoor to Iraq in Syria - and we can see what would have happened if we left Saddam there in 2003.
"We have left Bashar Assad in Syria. The result is that there have now in the last three years in Syria been virtually the same number of people killed in Syria as in the whole of Iraq. You have have nine million people displace from Syria, you have chaos and instability being pushed across the region."
Mr Blair said the Syrian situation had allowed Islamist militants to gain a stranglehold and the West would have to act because otherwise the terrorists would target the West.
He suggested that it was not impossible to overthrow Mr Assad in part because the opposition had fragmented into the camps of moderates and extremists. He said the way forward would be to establish an "inclusive government".
"Inaction over Syria" is also to blame, says Mr Blair He also cautioned working with Iraq after the president Hassan Rouhani offered to "work with" the US to tackle the Iraq insurgency.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry said American assistance to Iraq would only work if Iraqi leaders overcame deep divisions, the State Department said on Saturday.
After Mr Kerry spoke with Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, the State Department said in a statement: "He emphasised to the Foreign Minister that assistance from the United States would only be successful if Iraqi leaders were willing to put aside differences and implement a coordinated and effective approach to forge the national unity necessary to move the country forward."
Iran's president has said he would consider working with the US In Iraq, the defence ministry said its forces are having some air strike successes against ISIS fighters who have made dramatic gains in the Sunni heartlands north of Baghdad after overrunning Iraq's second-largest city of Mosul.
"The last three days the Iraqi Army Air Wing has carried out effective missions on militant targets," said General Hamid al Maliki, Commander of the Iraqi Army Air Wing.
:: Tony Blair will be appearing on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News at 10am today.
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