Tony Blair this morning said Britain needed to take action in Iraq and Syria - or face terror attacks in at home.
The former Prime Minister said the UK needed to intervene to stop a 'total disaster'. He insisted that he was not calling for troops on the ground - but suggested the 'selective use of air power' was one option on the table.
Mr Blair said: 'If we don't deal with the Syria issue then the problems are not just going to be for Syria and for the region, the problems are actually going to come back and they are going to hit us very directly even in our own country.'
He added: 'If you talk to security services in France and Germany and the UK, they will tell you their biggest single worry today returning jihadists fighters - our own citizens by the way - from Syria.
'We have to look at Syria, and Iraq and the region in context. We have to understand what's going on there and engage.'
He said that didn't mean 'ground troops' but it we shouldn't 'wash our hands of it and walk away'.
Mr Blair's remarks this morning come as extremist fighters from the al-Qaida-inspired 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' bear down on Baghdad.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show [sic] Mr Blair said an ISIS victory would be a 'total disaster and it mustn't be allowed to happen'.
He said: 'We are going to have to engage with it and if we don't then the consequences will come back on us.' » | Tom McTague, Mail Online Deputy Editor | Sunday, June 15, 2014
Iraq, Syria and the Middle East – An essay by Tony Blair: 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. » | Office of Tony Blair | Saturday, June 14, 2014
