Once a poodle, always a poodle.from the Guardian UK:
Jaw-jawing to war-war
Tony Blair's incontinent rhetoric in New York, comparing militant Islamism with 1920s fascism, only takes us closer to the abyss of war with Iran.David Cox
Tony Blair has seen fit to tell an American audience including Rupert Murdoch and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg that the "deadly ideology" behind extremist Islam poses a threat to the world comparable to that posed by fascism in the 1930s. Perhaps he found the three standing ovations he received a gratifying reminder of the days when America lauded him for lending global cover to George W Bush's once popular military adventurism. The rest of us, however, should shudder.
Blair went on to assure his listeners that the ideology he finds so awesome is "a perversion of the proper faith of Islam". He added that it "now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace". His remarks came shortly after George Bush had suggested that failure to prevent Iran from acquiring the know-how to make nuclear weapons could precipitate a third world war. They were delivered as not just Bush, but some of his potential successors as well, are eagerly preparing the ground for military action against Tehran.
Rather than lending his weight to this war fervour, what might a supposed Middle East peace envoy more usefully have said?
Blair could have pointed out that a complex country like Iran with not much to gain from war has little in common with a heavily militarised fascist state intent on annexing the territory of its neighbours. He might have suggested that one of the few things capable of uniting Iran's disparate peoples behind militarism would be an attack by western forces.
It might have been helpful to put the threat posed by Islamist terrorism in a rational context. On 9/11, 2,752 people died. On 7/7, 52 people were killed. On Britain's roads, more people die in an average year than in both of these incidents put together. Tragic though the effects of terrorism are for its victims, the truth is that they amount to no more than a pinprick on the life of the western world. Their significance lies entirely in the publicity that their perpetrators seek, at which we connive by providing, and in their ability to prompt reckless over-reaction by our politicians.
Islamist terrorism seems set to continue, whatever we do. Western politicians who claim to understand Islamic theology better than the faith's own scholars seem likely only to encourage jihadist recruitment. Iran may well acquire nuclear weapons, as Pakistan, arguably a rather more dangerous place, has already done. The task of our politicians now is to work out how to live with these realities, not to whip up futile bellicosity. Tony Blair's contribution has taken us one step further towards what might really prove to be a third world war. .....(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_cox/2007/10/jawjawing_to_warwar.html
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