Motes, Beams and Fallout

A violent religious megalomaniac is on the warpath again. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has declared that "with strength and prudence, Iran will pave the way to achieving peaceful nuclear energy. The Iranian nation is not frightened by the powers and their noise". The Bush administration, which claimed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, "suspects that Tehran wants to create atomic weapons", which naturally means that Tony suspects it too. Of course, the Vicar of Downing Street is the last man to underestimate the advantages of a nuclear deterrent; but because Ahmadinejad has previously called for Israel to be "wiped off the map", there is self-evidently a "malign intention on the part of the Iranian regime", which has caused "real and serious alarm right across the world", i.e. in Washington, in London and chez Berlusconi. The Vicar of Downing Street, whose previous concerns about weapons of mass destruction have led to such interesting results across Iran's western border, has threatened Iran with referral to the security council he helped to circumvent. Our American allies have designated Iran part of an "axis of evil"; and, while of course no malignancy was intentioned, have given ample indication of what happens to countries so designated when said countries do not have nuclear weapons at their disposal. "We obviously are discussing this closely, as well, with our American allies," the Reverend informed the House of Commons. Perhaps it was intended as reassurance. Recently the Reverend himself was forced to retract some rumours spread by his stooges about Iranian complicity in blowing up our boys; and while of course no intention could have been further from the malign, the fact that the rumours were started without the advantage of "evidence, or even reliable intelligence" might possibly have given Tehran pause about Britain's credentials as an honest broker; as might the Reverend's apparently straight-faced declaration that "There is no justification for Iran or any other country interfering in Iraq."