An attack on Iran would be Bush’s last, and worst, legacy
Editorial 2/7/08
The invasion of Iraq has turned into a disaster. The US should not heed those who are now urging a pre-emptive strike on Iran. In the sabre-rattling and tub-thumping aftermath to the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, President George Bush famously decried the existence of an “axis of evil”, linking North Korea, Iran and Iraq. The last member in this alleged triad, as the world knows only too well, was dealt with by an invasion and occupation that have resulted in the greatest debacle in American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. The first has recently been dropped from the Bush blacklist and gained the prospect of aid for disclosing details of its nuclear programs. But the third, Iran, continues to possess a pariah status, and is the subject of rumours and veiled threats of military action, by the US, Israel or both, which are alarmingly reminiscent of the rhetoric used in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The latest round of war talk arises from a report in the New Yorker by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, based in large part on information from sources close to Vice-President Dick Cheney, and describing an expansion of US covert operations in Iran.