John Kampfner :: author, broadcaster & commentator

Blair Must Stand Up to US Over Iran
Daily Express, 24th January 2005

Iraq used to be at the top of the hit parade. Now that dubious honour has fallen to its neighbour Iran, which finds itself in the sights of the hawks who run the world’s most powerful country. America is preparing to attack Iran, and as that prospect grows, so does the fear around the world of the consequences of another demonstration of military might from the White House.

So alarming is the idea that even of our government, which prides itself on its so-called special relationship with the US, is warning against it. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary who I revealed had his own reservations about the Iraq war two years ago, is this time going more public in his opposition.

In November, within days of the re-election of George W Bush, Straw made clear he believed a US attack on Iran was “inconceivable”. This, for the record, is what he said: “I don't see any circumstances in which military action would be justified against Iran, full stop.” Trouble was Bush and the neo-Conservatives have not been listening, and as the New Yorker magazine pointed out recently, American Special Forces are already on the ground mounting reconnaissance missions in preparation for a possible attack.

It is not that Iran is a friendly country that poses no threat to us. It is run by fundamentalist clerics deeply hostile to the West. It may well be defying the international community and trying to build its own nuclear weapons capability. We are right to apply maximum pressure on the regime. The question is: how?

Britain has been at the forefront of efforts to try to bring the Iranians to heel. Amazingly enough, given the tensions over the war with Iraq, we have been joined in our efforts by the French and the Germans. The three countries’ foreign ministers have held a number of crisis meetings with the Iranian government and have, it seems, made some progress.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog, has set out a strict set of instructions for the Iranians to demonstrate that they are not seeking to construct nuclear weapons. As ever, Iran is playing cat and mouse. It is not quite clear the extent to which they are complying. The process is by no means perfect. But it is better than the alternative.

That, in essence, is the message of a detailed dossier produced by Straw, making the case for further negotiations. It was issued quietly last week on the eve of Bush’s inauguration. Roughly at the same time, the new US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was announcing that the Americans had come up with a new axis of evil (remember the first version that had Iraq at the top), in which Iran takes pride of place alongside Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Burma and Belarus. Rice was the National Security Adviser during Bush’s first term of office and was instrumental behind the decision to attack Iraq.

While we are on Iraq, remember what was said about it? Remember Tony Blair warning us that the threat posed by its weapons of mass destruction were “real and growing”? Remember Bush saying the threat could take the form of a “mushroom cloud”? Remember them saying that we had no time to lose and that the only reason the UN team led by Hans Blix had failed to come up with anything was that the weapons inspectors were a bit soft?

And what happened? We later realise that these warnings were based on dodgy intelligence and that there had been no weapons for around a decade. In short, Blix was right and they were wrong. Nothing would have been lost if a little more patience and thoroughness had been demonstrated.

No two cases are the same. Just because one threat turned out to be bogus, it does not mean another might not exist. We should not ease up the pressure, look away, and say the prospect of a country like Iran having nuclear weapons is fine by us. Of course not: but we owe it to the tens of thousands of people who have been killed and maimed in that most botched of military adventures in Iraq to show more caution this time.

Ultimately Bush will do what he likes. He is in that frame of mind. Gentle, smiling pleas by Blair will get nowhere. So pliant has the Prime Minister been that his support is now taken for granted in Washington. No, Blair should follow Straw’s lead and tell his friends across the water in no uncertain terms that Europe will get on with the diplomacy and that if the Americans want to bomb, they will have to do it on their own, without our support.

This article first appeared in the Daily Express and may not be reproduced without permission.