Two men on the wrong mission

Their tough talk suggests Bush and Blair may be preparing to attack Iran, says robert fox

I hope George Bush and Tony Blair aren't about to do something daft over Iran. There are ominous signs that they are.

On the last stop of his Middle East in Dubai, Blair named Iran as the number one destabilising force in the region. Iran's government, he said, is "openly supporting terrorism in Iraq to stop a fledgling democratic process, trying to turn out a democratic government in Lebanon and flouting the international community's desire for peace in Palestine."

Blair and Bush are, in their different ways, like the G-men in the early days of the FBI. They love to have a public enemy number one. Sometimes the top slot has been taken by al-Qaeda, sometimes Hezbollah, Hamas or the Iraqi militia leader Moqtada al Sadr. And now they have the ramshackle regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take on.

To reinforce the sense of growing danger from Tehran, Bush has asked his new Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, to dispatch a second aircraft carrier group to the Gulf. This is needed to counter the threat of Iran mining the Straits of Hormuz in response to UN sanctions. To help out, the Royal Navy is sending two more minesweepers to join the international force there. "And yet," warned Blair, in best parsonical finger-wagging mode in Dubai, "a large part of world opinion is frankly almost indifferent. It would be bizarre if it weren't so deadly serious."

The retiring UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has warned the US and the UK that war is no solution for resolving the differences with Iran. If they believe they are acting in support of democracy, the Bush-Blair axis is showing pretty bad timing in turning up the rhetoric against Tehran.

In local elections this month, voters in Iran have turned away from Ahmadinejad. They have voted for moderate reformers led by the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, for places on the council of guidance, and

not for the faction of Ayatollah Yazdi, the president's main backer in the clergy. Moreover, students on the campuses are, at last, stirring and have been demonstrating actively against the autocratic ways of the current regime.

The focus on Iran seems to be a distraction from the crunch fast approaching in Iraq. On January 10, Bush is due to announce his last big initiative to win 'success' - even 'victory' - in Iraq. The outlines of the plan are known: to take back security from the Iraqis and to 'clean out and hold' key trouble-spots. An extra 30,000 to 50,000 troops are to be flown in for the 'surge' programme.

The proposal of James Baker's Iraq Study Group for US forces to pull back slowly, to accelerate Iraqi army training, and for most US troops to be out by spring 2008 has been rejected outright by the White House. So, too, has Baker's urging for negotiations with the troublesome neighbours Syria and Iran. Instead, these are to be confronted.

The surge solution also goes against the wishes of Bush's most senior general

responsible for Iraq, General John Abizaid, who believes no extra troops should be deployed. This week it was announced he was retiring - and leaving his post early.

Behind the chest-beating rhetoric on Iraq and Iran, there is a nightmare possibility, still only at the stage of informed rumour in the Middle East. Some suspect that a rough-and-ready deal is in the cooking involving Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, the US and Britain to tackle Iran head on with force before it becomes an even bigger menace when it actually gets nuclear weapons.

I leave that one dangling. Israel is desperate for action. As for Bush, the January 10 announcement would be dramatic if its main topic were to be Iran and not Iraq. It could all be a huge diversion for a President snagged by dismal poll ratings and a Prime Minister with a nasty police inquiry about the sale of honours getting ever closer to the inner sanctum of No 10.