LAST THROW FOR THE NEO-CONS

11:00 - 27 October 2007
Ow good that we can have a civilised national conversation about the future of nuclear power in Britain! And how very British of us to refrain from wild name-calling about Gordon Brown as a "despot" or part of an "axis of evil" just because he ordered a new generation of nuclear submarines with the minimum of democratic debate. We're saving that kind of language for the Iranians and, more particularly, President Ahmadinejad, who is currently runaway favourite for taking up the title of "New Hitler", recently relinquished by Saddam.In 2005 Jack Straw, as Foreign Secretary, described the prospect of military strikes on Iran as "inconceivable". A few years later his new boss has no problems in conceiving of it as he aligns the UK with the US neo-conservatives who are hell-bent on one last bloody military adventure before - with any luck - they are slung out of office.

Expect to hear a lot more about Iran in the coming weeks and months. More and more stories will appear in newspapers as diverse as the Sun to the Telegraph. Iran will be propelled into public discourse from the pub to the office to the living room. And do not think for an instant that this is an issue that will not affect us in this corner of the world. The public are being primed for a war that could be of catastrophic proportions.

If the deranged cabal who occupy the White House get their way we will be panicked into believing that bombing Iran - even though it threatens a conflagration across the Middle East and beyond - is a necessary evil to safeguard the free world.

I have no illusions about the nature of the Iranian regime, nor how internally repressive it may be. But if you think that unleashing air strikes on that country is about thwarting its nuclear ambitions, here are some revision notes: Remember the dodgy dossier? Remember us being 45 minutes from destruction by Saddam's WMD? Remember that he too used to be the New Hitler? Or how George Bush threatened to collapse the United Nations unless it surrendered to his will? And look at what has resulted.

According to research published in the medical journal The Lancet last October, 655,000 Iraqis had died as a direct result of the invasion. As you might expect, Downing Street dismissed the research as "flawed", even as the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Sir Roy Anderson, backed the survey and described its methodology as "robust".

Think on as well about how compliant was our media in the manufactured build-up to the Iraq war when it should have been patently obvious that a predetermined script was being unravelled for public consumption.

Similar now would appear to be happening over Iran, as the Bush regime pumps up the scare-mongering rhetoric.

Don't believe a word of it. It is not without coincidence that Iran is sitting on vast oil reserves which - if the USA could secure a puppet regime alongside that in Baghdad - could be piped straight across to the Mediterranean for mass consumption for an America facing an imminent fuel and energy crisis.

Nor should we overlook the spectacular failure of the Iraq adventure and its demoralising effect on the US Government's global project. Far from deterring them in further imperialist war, an attack on Iran has been given greater impetus because they think they have nothing to lose.

The prospective scenarios are almost to terrible to grasp. Iran would defend itself by escalating the crisis and possibly launching missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia, and American vessels in the Persian Gulf. Syria and pro-Iranian groupings in the Lebanon would side with Iran. Nuclear-tooled Israel would retaliate with an intensity that it is near impossible to forecast. The conflagration might see an uprising in Pakistan and the installation of an al Qaida-supporting government. Socialist Venezuela under Hugo Chavez might cut off its oil supplies to the USA. How might the Bush administration react to this challenge from Latin America? You do not need a crystal ball to answer that.

And where would be Britain be in the midst of it all? It is inconceivable that we would support a bombing campaign, says Jack Straw. Is that in the same way that it was once inconceivable that a British Prime Minister could present false evidence for war then be appointed peace envoy to the Middle East, or that the UK would ride shotgun for a US Government which specialises in kidnap and torture? We have been here before.

The bombing of Iran could easily cascade into a war of unforeseen consequences.

Remember, there have been precedents. Take this one, for instance: Two shots in Sarajevo - the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand - triggered a chain of events that ultimately led to the First World War in which millions died.

One big difference between the world then and now is that no one in 1914 had nuclear weapons.

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