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Attacking Iran should be an option: Britain's Tories
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-16 11:45
Military action against Iran should not be ruled out to deal with its
controversial nuclear programme, a newspaper quoted Britain's main opposition
Conservative Party as saying.
Iran's
Revolutionary Guardians Cheif, Yahya Rahim Safavi, pictured in 2005. Iran
is ready to counter any US aggression with offensive action, Safavi
warned, as Washington unveiled new plans to promote democracy in the
Islamic republic. [AFP] | The Times newspaper said
the party's defence spokesman Liam Fox told US Republicans in Washington that
British Prime Minister Tony Blair should follow President George W. Bush's
example and leave all options on the table.
"Every pressure must be brought," Fox was quoted as saying in a speech to the
right-wing Hermitage Foundation Thursday.
"But it was wrong for the European Union's foreign affairs spokesman Xavier
Solana to rule out the use of force. It is wrong for Britain's Foreign
Secretary, Jack Straw, to echo him.
"Frederick the Great once observed that diplomacy without arms was like music
without instruments. We must keep all options open if we are to stand any chance
of a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis."
Blair has made repeated warnings to Tehran that it was making a mistake by
ignoring international concern over its nuclear research programme, which
Western powers fear is a front for developing atomic weapons.
But he has said that military action is "not on our agenda".
Instead, he hopes the crisis -- which has seen Iran reported to the United
Nations Security Council -- will be resolved through diplomatic means.
Fox is part of a Conservative Party delegation attempting to heal a rift with
senior US Republicans following the Tories' call two years ago for Blair to
resign over the Iraq war.
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