10-17-05, 9:04 am

BRITISH and US pressure on Iran to bring it into line over its nuclear programme is taking on the character of a mudfight - if enough dirt is thrown, some of it must stick.

The latest charge, by an unnamed British 'senior official' blames the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for supplying, via the Shi'ite Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, high-tech explosive devices that have killed eight British soldiers in Iraq. No evidence is given. It is simply part of a drip-drip-drip propaganda offensive intended to arouse public opinion against Iran.

It is also the height of hypocrisy for either Washington or London to point the finger at any country for introducing weaponry into Iraq.

Not only did they launch a criminal, mass slaughter against the Iraqi people but they failed to secure the munitions supplies of the defeated Iraqi armed forces, leaving them open and available to any group seeking to build up an arsenal.

The insecurity suffered by Iraq's people is one of the many negative consequences of an illegal invasion and occupation.

The main justification offered by Tony Blair for Britain to follow George W Bush in his criminal adventure was the convincing evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which he had been given by senior intelligence sources.

Convincing it might have been to him and senior the sources might have been, but it made no difference to the reality that the WMD evidence amounted to nothing short of tripe.

There were no WMD. Lies to the contrary were simply a pretext to push this country into a war in which it had no business being.

And now they're at it again. Jack Straw presents evidence to the Iranians, 'which, in our judgement, clearly links the improvised explosive devices which have been used against British and other troops, mainly in the south of Iraq, to Hezbollah and to Iran.'

Right on cue, Condoleezza Rice responds: 'I have every reason to believe that the British are right about this. I trust the British on this issue.' What a surprise!

We are being treated to a rerun of the military two-step that preceded the Iraq invasion.

One partner discovers 'evidence' of yellow cake being exported illegally from Niger to Iraq and the other trumpets the discovery.

One goes to the UN security council to reveal high-resolution aerial photographs of mobile chemical weapons lab and the other demands immediate action.

The sum total of viable evidence added up to nil, but the combination of government sabre-rattling, media hysteria and the timely despatch of armed forces 'just in case' made for a build-up to war whose momentum became all but unstoppable.

Whatever the misgivings about the repressive Iranian government, we must not allow ourselves to be press-ganged into another invasion scenario in the interests of the same war criminals who destroyed Iraq.

Nuclear weapons must be eradicated in their entirety. Anti-nukes treaties were not signed simply to guarantee a closed shop for already nuclear-capable states, including the major imperialist powers.

From Morning Star