Mehdi Hasan: Iran

Last night, on my way home after doing the late-night paper review on Sky News, I got involved in a minor Twitter spat with Iain Dale over the nature of Iran's nuclear programme. Iain is one of my favourite Tories - intelligent, open-minded, unpredictable, amusing. He's also my publisher - which means, of course, that ... read more

On last night's Question Time, well-known Middle East expert and respected nuclear analyst Melanie Phillips proclaimed:

The IAEA and virtually every western government believes that Iran is racing to develop a nuclear weapon. It is behaving entirely as if it is. It is boasting that it is.

Put aside the nonsensical and deluded claim that Iran has "boasted" it is building nukes (eh? Where? When? That would ... read more

US warns Iran over threat to block oil route

screams the headline on the BBC website. According to the report:

The US Navy has said it will not tolerate disruption to a vital oil-trade route, following an Iranian threat to close it.

Iran warned it would shut the Strait of Hormuz if the West imposed more sanctions over its nuclear programme.

The BBC report read more

I spent much of the weekend in various Twitterspats with pundits (professional and self-appointed) and a Labour member of Parliament too. The issue? Iran. Yep, a mere mention of the word sends normally sane and rational (dare I use this word anymore?) people, on the left and the right, into spasms of hysteria.

I wrote a column for Friday's Guardian, entitled (read more

There was a time when I had a lot of admiration for the work of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Its Nobel-prize-winning chief, Mohammed ElBaradei, stood up to the Bush administration over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the 2003 invasion in 2003 - and was vindicated by the subsequent, post-war ... read more

As predictably as night follows day, Andrew Gilligan has responded on his Telegraph blog to my interview with the mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, last week. I suspected he wouldn't be able to resist.

For those of you who haven't followed Gilligan's illustrious career since his role in "outing" Dr David Kelly, it's worth being ... read more

The former New Statesman journalist and "liberal interventionist" John Lloyd has a rather silly blog post up on the Prospect site entitled:

Ed Miliband's alarming attitude on Iraq

He says Miliband's declaration yesterday that the invasion of Iraq was "wrong" implies that the Labour leader does "not believe Saddam Hussein's regime posed a real threat to the world". Memo to John: it wasn't. He had no WMDs. ... read more

I find it ironic, if not frustrating, to see Gordon Brown, in Trinidad, pontificating on Iran's alleged breach of its international obligations and repeating insinuations, if not outright claims, from leaders in the west that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, in the very same week that the Chilcot inquiry is reminding us of the lies, distortions and exaggerations fed to us by those same leaders about Iraq's weapons ... read more

Aidan Radnedge's cover story in Metro this morning is an abysmal piece of journalism -- if, indeed, it can be called journalism.

Headlined "We will rid world of nuclear arms" (sorry, there doesn't seem to be a link available for the piece on the Metro website) and focusing on the UN's "landmark pledge" to abolish nukes, his bizarre piece claims in its opening paragraph that the pledge was made "despite defiance ... read more