Two men on the wrong mission
Their tough talk suggests Bush and Blair may be preparing to attack Iran, says robert fox
I hope George Bush and Tony Blair aren't about to do something daft over Iran. There are ominous signs that they are.
On the last stop of his Middle East in Dubai, Blair named Iran as the number one destabilising force in the region. Iran's government, he said, is "openly supporting terrorism in Iraq to stop a fledgling democratic process, trying to turn out a democratic government in Lebanon and flouting the international community's desire for peace in Palestine."
Blair and Bush are, in their different ways, like the G-men in the early days of the FBI. They love to have a public enemy number one. Sometimes the top slot has been taken by al-Qaeda, sometimes Hezbollah, Hamas or the Iraqi militia leader Moqtada al Sadr. And now they have the ramshackle regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take on.
Blair and Bush love to have a public enemy number one. Sometimes it’s al-Qaeda or Hamas. Now it’s the turn of Iran
To reinforce the sense of growing danger from Tehran, Bush has asked his new Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, to dispatch a second aircraft carrier group to the Gulf. This is needed to counter the threat of Iran mining the Straits of Hormuz in response to UN sanctions. To help out, the Royal Navy is sending two more minesweepers to join the international force there. "And yet," warned Blair, in best parsonical finger-wagging mode in Dubai, "a large part of world opinion is frankly almost indifferent. It would be bizarre if it weren't so deadly serious."
The retiring UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has warned the US and the UK that war is no solution for resolving the differences with Iran. If they believe they are acting in support of democracy, the Bush-Blair axis is showing pretty bad timing in turning up the rhetoric against Tehran.
In local elections this month, voters in Iran have turned away from Ahmadinejad. They have voted for moderate reformers led by the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, for places on the council of guidance, and
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
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