A Second Open Letter to David Cameron and William Hague

Dear William Hague and David Cameron,

On Monday 8^th October, the following exchange took place during the prime minister’s monthly press conference, showing the Prime Minister to be hesitant and defensive. Wouldn’t it be worth inquiring into the cause?

QUESTION Prime Minister, you have said that you want to listen to the British people. One of the things that the British people seem to be demonstrating is no appetite for any new war related to Iraq. Yet the war drums are banging in Washington for an attack on Iran. Are you prepared to follow previous Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, in saying that such an attack is inconceivable. And indeed are you prepared to go further and say that you would neither support nor assist any American attack on Iran?

PM I will follow what I have said myself only recently that we take very seriously what the Iranians are trying to do in building up their nuclear capability for nuclear weapons. This cannot go unchallenged given that it is a breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If they do not co-operate with the international authorities that are examining their nuclear installations, or potential nuclear installations, that is a very big breach of international rules as well. And we believe however that this matter can be resolved by diplomatic means, by the Resolutions that have been passed by the United Nations, by sanctions if necessary, but I am not prepared to go further than that. What I am prepared to say is we take very seriously what Iran is proposing and we are prepared to use the methods that we have used in diplomatic sanctions to deal with this problem and I do not rule out anything.

This is worrying, following as it does the pattern we saw in the run-up to the Iraq war, with almost identical evasions, dubious pretexts and empty assurances. When asked whether the British government will support the coming war we see evasive answers grounded on innuendo (it is no stronger) concerning weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Indeed this WMD accusation is passé, the US administration concluding that the American people, bitten once, won’t buy the scam a second time—it’s a shame no one has told the UK PM.

QUESTION What about Iraq? Just as James Baker has advocated at the highest level.

PM And the Iranians have got to get a message, as I will give them today at the House of Commons, that they must not intervene in Iraq in a way that is breeding further violence and supporting terrorism and causing the loss of life in what is an infant democracy trying to make its way forward and the Iranians must hear the message that interference in another country's affairs as they have done without any support from the United Nations or any international organisation is unacceptable.

No evidence has been forthcoming that the Iranians are involved in destabilising the country, and there is a great deal of analysis that supports the case that the Iranians are at the very least being highly restrained in any assistance that they are giving to the Shia militias—otherwise, for example, we would surely see anti-aircraft missiles of the sort the Americans assisted the Saudi ‘jihadis’ in Afghanistan being used by the Iraqi insurgents. The January attack on the American base in Karbala, given pride of place in the July 11^th Lieberman amendment to the Defense Authorization Act, is often cited as evidence of Iranian involvement in the Iraqi insurgency but the most disturbing aspect of the affair was that the local police, and even Iraqi support workers, seemed to know about the attack yet American intelligence didn’t and the locals didn’t let the Americans in on it—indeed Death by treachery as the Anchorage Daily News called it. As distressing as it is, this points to the insurgency being principally an Iraqi resistance to a foreign military occupation. Our armies are not, and should not be, prepared for indefinite hostile occupations so it is only natural that they will look for an enemy to blame that they can attack; it should come as no surprise that Iraq garrison, in their understandable frustration, will wish to blame the Iranians for the ‘insurgency’. However the signs are that its true causes are closer to home: ‘Shock and Awe’, the huge caches of weapons secured before the invasion being allowed to disperse in the aftermath, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, the inability to repair and restore civilian institutions and infrastructure, the huge quantities of weapons subsequently dispersed by the Americans which remain unaccounted for, the reckless attempt to restart the Iraqi economy by freighting in of palates of hundred dollar bills (of Iraqi treasury) and dispersed without any accountability, the shocking brutality of the American military where ordinary Iraqis are concerned, never mind American mercenaries, accountable to no law, responding to road rage by embarking on a shooting rampage. No wonder the Iranians are bemused; it doesn’t take a genius to work out what has been fuelling the insurgency and why the Iranians are being blamed for it. However the ‘sovereign’ Iraqi government is courting and praising Iranian assistance in stabilising the country, is strenuously objecting to American aggression against Iranian nationals and for arming paramilitaries in Anbar. And who can blame them; once the Sunny paramilitary alliance with the US has served its purpose it is entirely predictable that the paramilitaries will find an alternative use for their weapons not so satisfactory for the Americans and Iraqi government, but of this much we can be quite sure: the Iranians will get the blame for it. (There are many good sceptical analyses of Petraeus’s proxy-war hypothesis: see for example Gareth Porter, Scott Ritter, Philip Giraldi; see also The Big Lie: ‘Iran Is a Threat’.)

Gordon Brown is no doubt keen to not damage the trans-Atlantic alliance nor his relationship with his own military, nor his relationship with the British electorate, and what an uncomfortable place it is to be! Perhaps he should be encouraged to focus on what is right in principle and best for Britain on the long term, bearing in mind that the current US administration is seriously discredited, unpopular and divided and that the politically ambitious commander in Iraq saw no active service before 2003 and has apparently been described by his superior as ‘an ass-kissing little chickenshit’. There is grave disquiet right across the American establishment about the damage this administration is doing to their republic, and of the horrendous potential consequences of a military strike on Iran. It is not easy for American commanders to push back against a President that is demanding military action, and it remains an extremely difficult sell to refrain from military action on prudential grounds when that action is perceived as morally right, and it has become seemingly impossible for any politicians in the US to cross the Likud-lobby (AIPAC), which is urgently pushing for a military confrontation between Washington and Tehran.

Immediately after the 2004 US presidential elections the Baghdad blogger River Bend proposed the following condolences for those who voted against George W. Bush.

Sympathies in advance
For when they reinstate the draft!
We hope (insert_name_here) stays as safe as he/she can
And writes frequently while in Iran!

Anyone who imagines that the Iranians will throw off their government in response to being attacked, or that the Iranians have not seen this coming a long way off, must be in a seriously delusional state; the Iranians have already introduced petrol rationing in preparation. Iran has not attacked any other country in modern times but is no strangers to war and can see it being played out on both their borders. Far from being a busted, bankrupt rump of a regime worn down by bombing and sanctions as Iraq was in 2003, president Ahmadinejad in his recent trip to South America can afford to drop a cool $1bn in Iranian aid and development to poverty stricken Bolivia, no strings attached, and has important strategic allies in China, Russia and Venezuela. We may scoff at Russians resuming their cold-war bombing sorties but we won’t be able to say we weren’t warned if the Iranians turn out to be less of a push over than has been assumed, even in the initial phase of hostilities, where everyone seems to be promising another cakewalk for the American navy and air force.

If we are going to meander into this war as we did the last time can we at least be a bit better prepared. How about asking the Prime Minister about his preparations for petrol rationing?

Chris Dornan