Tony Blair has blamed the insurgency in Iraq on the "predictable and malign effect" of the West's failure to intervene in Syria - not of the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
In a renewed call for military action, the former prime minister rejected arguments that Iraq would be more stable today if the controversial 2003 war had not happened.
And he said that unless the international community was prepared to overcome public reluctance and confront the extremists "hard, with force", the consequences would be more serious still.
Mr Blair says the 2003 invasion is not to blame Mr Blair, who led Britain into the US-led war to remove Saddam and is now a Middle East peace envoy, said Iraq was "in mortal danger" from radical Sunni fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) who have taken over several key cities.
But he placed the blame on the sectarianism of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's government and the spread of Syria's three-year civil war.
In an eight-page essay on his website, he wrote: "By all means argue about the wisdom of earlier decisions. But it is the decisions now that will matter.
"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.
"We have to put aside the differences of the past and act now to save the future. Where the extremists are fighting, they have to be countered hard, with force."
But he said it did not mean another invasion, adding: "There are masses of responses we can make short of that. But they need to know that wherever they're engaged in terror, we will be hitting them."
Mr Blair said there was a need to "learn properly" the lessons of the last 10 years and urged people to accept that the violent extremism in the region was not a result of Western intervention.
If Saddam had been left in place, he suggested, Syria's example showed the dictator would probably have gone on to develop weapons of mass destruction.
"Inaction over Syria" is also to blame, says Mr Blair And there was little doubt that he would have faced an uprising as part of the Arab Spring - risking a "full-blown sectarian war across the region".
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 Iran, President Hassan Rouhani said he would consider working with the US, its traditional enemy, to combat the Islamist militants in Iraq, adding: "We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups."
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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