Here’s Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blaming the terrorist violence against civilians in Iraq on … Americans and Israelis. “We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.” Try not to burst out laughing.
BLAIR ON THE BRINK: Johnny Freedland is a pretty good indicator of where the liberal chattering classes in London now are on the question of Tony Blair. Here’s the money quote from his column:
The plain truth is this: British troops went to kill and be killed last year on a false premise. We were told Saddam had WMD and he did not; we were told he was a threat to us and he was not. So far that act has brought no consequences on its perpetrators.
Those who made bad errors in shedding light on the act – at the BBC and the Daily Mirror – have paid for their errors. But for the act itself, there has been no punishment. This suggests a failure of our very system of governance: it allowed a government to go to war in defiance of its people and on a false pretext and get away with it. The system needs to prove that it can correct itself – and to do it soon.
The knives are out for Blair, but he remains Labour’s best electoral asset. My bet is that he will survive, but that, alas, is no longer certain.
The Dish 