Tony Blair came under fierce attack from former Labour cabinet members, some diplomats and the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Ashdown after he called for limited military intervention to drive the militant group Isis out of Iraq and restore order in Syria.

In a series of media interviews, Blair said: "The key thing is that they [Isis] need to know they're not going to be able to continue their push unhindered." Urging Britain to coordinate closely with the US, he said: "We've got to in a way stop believing that the only alternatives are doing nothing or ground troops as in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are a myriad of responses, including the selective use of air power – as we did in Libya to remove the regime there. Intervention is tough. Partial intervention is tough. Non-intervention is also tough."

The government's national security council is due to meet on Tuesday to formulate a response to the crisis, but is waiting to hear from the White House on what options will be taken up. The focus so far has been on efforts to persuade the Iraqi government to operate on less sectarian lines and to see if any regional conference could be convened.

Denying the crisis had been caused by the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, but admitting regrets about how the occupation was run, Blair said Islamist fighters from Syria represented a threat to the UK. "The reason why whether we like it or not we're going to get involved in this ultimately is because these extremist groups also intend to target us," he said.

"If you talk to British security people today or the French or the Germans, their single biggest anxiety about our own security in our own country today are returning jihadist fighters from Syria. I understand entirely why people want to say stay out of it, it's someone else's fight, it's got nothing to do with us but unfortunately the people we're dealing with, they are going to pull us into this whether we like it or not".

He added: "The idea that Iraq today would be stable if Saddam had been left in place is I think just simply not credible".

The former Labour international development minister Clare Short led the criticism, saying Blair "is absolutely, consistently wrong, wrong, wrong and of course he has become a complete American neocon who thinks military action, bombing, attacking will solve the problems when it is actually making more and more tension, anger, division, bitterness in the Middle East".

Ashdown, normally more supportive of intervention, said: "I cannot see a problem which at the very least has been made worse by using western guns and bombs to kill hundreds of Arab Muslims is about to be made better by using more western guns and bombs to kill hundreds of Arab Muslims whether that's through drones or through fighters or whatever, is the right and appropriate response."

Lord Prescott, Blair's deputy prime minister, likened Blair to a crusader and the Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: "Blair has become an embarrassment on the international stage."

Lord Malloch Brown, the former Labour foreign office minister, said Blair was half-right. He said: "There isn't a military solution to this which is enduring if [Iraqi president Nouri-al] Maliki still runs a Shia dictatorship in the country, essentially."

But he said he backed some military support for Maliki to bring about a a pause. "Maybe some air cover, some equipment delivered. But that pause, the price of it must be serious political negotiation, not with Isis, but with Sunni moderates to form a more representative government. It's Iraq's last chance." he said

Alistair Burt, the recent Conservative foreign office minister for the Middle East, also agreed with Blair in part by saying: "In Syria we've now seen an example of non-western intervention, it's a disaster."