Tony’s Road To Damascus
MORE on Tony Blair’s place in history now as the Times brings news of his speech last night to the Lord Mayor’s banquet at Guildhall.
“Iran and Syria can be Blair’s ‘partners for peace’,” says the Times’s front-page headline. Tony says that two parts of what George Bush once referred to as the “axis of evil” can be our friends.
All Iran has to do is stop supporting terrorism in Iraq and give up its nuclear ambitions. Failure to do so may result in Tony asking again. Or isolation.
Meanwhile a Untied Nations probe is investigating Syria’s part in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister and an opponent of Syria.
And Iran presses on regardless and foments carnage.
Tony says terrorism in Iraq has “changed the nature of the battle”. He adds: “Its purpose is now plain: to provoke civil war. The violence is not therefore an accident or the result of faulty planning. It is a deliberate strategy. It is the direct result of outside extremists teaming up with internal extremists.”
But Iran should not worry about being invaded. Tony says Tehran has a “genuine, if misplaced” fear that the US wants to attack it. It doesn’t. Although it reserves the right to so if it chooses.
There is a long way to go if Iran is to come onside. As the Telegraph reports: “Iran plotting to groom bin Laden’s successor.”
Firstly, the paper tells us that the al-Qaeda leader is not dead. Bin Laden is experiencing “declining health” and a replacement to sit at the terror group’s head is needed.
While both sides of the Atlantic rethink strategy in Iraq, Iran is “working hard to establish a closer relationship with bin Laden’s fanatics”.
British spooks tell the paper that Iran’s excitable President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants al-Qaeda to make Saif al-Adel, a 46-year-old former colonel in Egypt’s special forces, the organisation’s number three in command.
We learn that pro-Iran al-Adel, one of the FBI’s most wanted men, is living in Tehran.
The link between al-Qaeda and Iran seems clear – clearer than that the hawks managed to make between Iraq and the terror group.
The stakes may be raised still further before the bargaining can begin…
Posted: 14th, November 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
