On one level Labour leader Ed Milliband was right to make a connection between the current migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and recent British policy in Libya.

There was a failure in post-operational planning in 2011 following the UK's involvement in moves to oust President Gaddafi but on a much more important level his finger-pointing should extend to the west's meddling in the Arab world. And that means going back to 2003 and the ill-starred and illegal venture to invade Iraq which was put in train by the Labour prime minister Tony Blair.

Ever since the UK made it its business to back the US-led coalition to effect regime change in Iraq by toppling President Saddam Hussein the region has been in a state of turmoil and ultimately that is one of the main reasons why so many refugees have been on the move to try to escape from the mayhem. In the aftermath of the invasion Iraq was plunged into a bloody civil war between the Shia and Sunni factions. To get away from it thousands of Iraqis fled into neighbouring Jordan and Syria as the US and their coalition allies failed to get a grip of the situation.

Amongst them were members of the ruling Ba'ath Party as it quickly became apparent that while the coalition knew how to win the war they had no plans to impose a peace. Unlike the end of the Second World War when defeated Germany was placed under firm allied control Iraq rapidly went into freefall. The result was a power vacuum which was filled by the warring factions and exploited by al-Qaeda fighters who, ironically, had had no presence in Iraq while Saddam was in power.

Then came the events of the so-called Arab Spring, the series of demonstration which began in Tunisia at the end of 2010 and quickly spread across the Arab world. The protests ranged from demonstrations to riots and in some places, notably Egypt and Libya, led to the government being toppled. All this was largely welcomed by the outside world as it held out the possibility of the end of tyranny and the introduction of democratic forms of government but the Arab Spring came at a price.

In Egypt President Hosni Mubarak was forced out of power in the following year and following elections he was replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi who was himself overthrown in 2013 by a military junta led by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Unsettling though this was, worse followed in 2011 when Libya imploded and President Gaddafi was bundled out of power and assassinated by his own people. His demise was aided by the intervention of western airpower acting under the aegis of US Security Council Resolution 1973 which had authorised the imposition of a no-fly zone over the country.

Once again the easy part was getting rid of Gaddafi and smashing his military support but ahead lay sterner challenges as Libya descended into civil war and became ungovernable. It is against that background that the Libyan people traffickers are able act with impunity, extracting huge amounts of money from the hapless people made homeless by the fighting. Add on the civil war in Syria which broke out in January 2011 following a collapse of presidential authority and it is easy to see why so many people are desperate to escape from countries they once called home. The effects of the Arab Spring have even been felt in far-off Mali in sub-Saharan Africa as Tuareg fighters began to battle for an independent homeland in the north to be known as Azawad.

In the midst of this anarchy the Islamic State saw its chance. In June last year it proclaimed a worldwide caliphate under the control of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and began a programme of extreme Islamic control and indoctrination. Very soon after its inception it had taken over large areas in eastern Syria and northern Iraq and had established itself as a power in the region backed by oil revenues, taxation and extortion. The violence which followed in its wake was also a destabilising factor forcing people to flee to avoid forced conversion and other indignities. Many of them were drowned in the Mediterranean last week.