Hands off Iran

Blair and now Brown claim we need a resurgence in nuclear power, yet they deny Iran's sovereign claim to nuclear technology and threaten war. Iran has no need for nuclear power - renewables in contrast are safe and offer enormous potential - but how can Blair or Brown tell them not to go for them if we are going to go nuclear?

Apart from new nuke reactors Brown wants to replace Trident with more nuclear arsenal claiming we may face a nuclear threat in the future. Iran faces one today. They are surrounded by US forces in 11 neighbouring countries, stealth bombers on British Diego Garcia and at Fairford and two battle carrier groups in the Gulf. The Americans can deliver 20,000 missiles on Iran in one sortie and have invaded two neighbours - Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israelis - another nuclear power - join them in threatening imminent attack on Iran. Iran must not get hold of nuclear weapons, but who are we to tell them? If Blair or Brown were in power in Tehran they would have got them years ago.

The US sabre-rattling over Iran is not only serious and disturbing, but also has uncanny resonance with the lead-up to the Iraq war - a war where the Iraqi civilian death toll has now reached a staggering 655,000 - at least I note Australia have last week admitted the war was about oil! See Paul Rogers latest comment on the Iraq war on Open Democracy here.

Any attack on Iran would bring yet more misery and disaster and have economic, environmental and security repercussions worldwide. It is great to hear that Iran has agreed to lift the three-month ban on visits by UN weapons inspectors to a main nuclear plant - we now need Western powers to respond.....

It seems that at least US citizens aren't now buying George Bush's previous rationale for attacking Iran, i.e. its alleged – but definitely unproven – intention to build nuclear weapons. So now the US hawks have come up with another excuse: "We must strike because Iranians are killing our soldiers in Iraq." (http://tinyurl.com/2j3jrk). As with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, little real evidence has been produced to justify this accusation, but the US Senate has still voted unanimously to condemn Iran. Senator Joe Lieberman said: "This is a warning to the Iranians that whatever differences divide us politically here in Washington, we stand united against these outrageous attacks.''

All this sabre-rattling means it is all the more important to maintain the pressure on Gordon Brown for Britain to oppose any attack on Iran.

There are a couple of actions to take:

- sign Stop the War letter to Gordon Brown
- sign Hands Off the People of Iran petition

See Pilger on Iran from 13th April 2007 here.

Locally Greens have raised the issue of Iran with various letters and press releases - sadly earlier in the year both Labour and Tories refused to sign a letter urging dialogue not war in Iraq. It remains a dangerous situation which the mainstream media tend to only cover if a new issue arises - infact last year when Greens reported fears about renewed bomber activity at Fairford I had a call from Gulf News - did manage to get that story in the Wilts and Glos Standard but papers this side of Gloucestershire were not interested - not a local issue.....having said that they have published a few...enough before I'm off on a ramble....time for my tea.