| Blair seemed to imply Iran did prefer the dictatorship under Saddam in Iraq despite the fact that the dictator had imposed a devastating war on the country, and supported and accommodated one of the most notorious terrorist groupings, behind assassinations of leading Iranian prominent figures and officials, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO). |
During a fresh grilling at Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War, ex-UK Premier Tony Blair has claimed that Iran considered a democratic Iraq an “existential threat”.
In the recently-held session of the Inquiry, Blair claimed that some states in the Middle East region believe the US-led invasion of Iraq made Iran more powerful.
The former British Prime Minister made the allegation irrespective of the fact that Iran owes its weight in the region to its support for democratically-elected governments of Muslim countries against those installed by foreign hands.
He said his response to such criticisms is that Iran needed to be dealt with differently than it was the policy in the 1980s, which was erecting a Saddam-style dictatorship to wage war on the country.
He did not name Britain, though, as one of those pursuing the 'policy' of provoking Saddam against Iran leading to an eight-year war, which began in 1980 early after the Islamic revolution there, and lasted until 1988.
However his comments did ring a bell with the audience as how can a country like Britain which backed a dictator like Saddam just years ago could probably now be the harbinger of democracy in Iraq and how can someone conceive a similarly swift change of position by Iran to opposing democracy.
Blair seemed to imply Iran did prefer the dictatorship under Saddam in Iraq despite the fact that the dictator had imposed a devastating war on the country, and supported and accommodated one of the most notorious terrorist groupings, behind assassinations of leading Iranian prominent figures and officials, the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO).
The MKO was blacklisted by the US government as a terrorist grouping for masterminding the assassination of former Iranian president Mohammad-Ali Rajaee, and several other officials, yet the British lawmakers wrote to US President Barrack Obama in 2009 to follow the EU example and remove the group from the US' terror list.
The MKO terrorist members are now freely living and working in the UK.
Blair did not stop at that in his accusations when be blamed Iran for acting like what the
al-Qaeda extremists are doing in Iraq.
He acknowledged Iran's influence in the Middle East, but not as a major Muslim nation
which is leading efforts to curb the influence of bullying powers including Britain in the predominantly Muslim region.
The former premier claimed Iran's influence 'he is seeing everywhere' in the Middle East is “negative and destabilizing” and opposed to the peace process.
This comes against the backdrop of remarks made earlier this month by Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani in which he who called for “vigilance and solidarity” among Iraqis to safeguard the sustenance of their unity government of Shiites and Sunnis against the divisive plots of the occupiers.
Larijani's point was echoed by Blair when he said they believed before the invasion that extremism was an “encrustment” in Iraq but later they came to know that the 'ideology' by which he meant Islam had “a far greater reach than we like to accept”.
That was the point where Blair let the cat out of the bag by equating extremism, which should be fought in Iraq, with Islam and by extension implying that the very faith is the source of his hostile remarks toward Iran.
He further strengthened such an impression when he said Iran is opposed to the western way of life, and not the do-called democracy in the western world.