If there is political madness in some of the statements made by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, it would be equally mad to even consider the option of bombing Iran.

One must avoid confusing the man’s verbal threats with whether Iran’s nuclear programme is really an immediate threat or not.

Even American defence analysts are beginning to doubt the immediacy of such a threat.

When posed by verbal madness the worst thing we could do is react by going ballistic (no puns intended!) or else by being either unduly alarmist or outright hysterical.

What worries me is whether we are trying to react to the Iranian President’s words by mere saber rattling that is hollow at the core, or else whether there is real contingency planning going on for military strikes against Iran.

If the UN Security Council does not come forward with an authorisation for a military strike against Iran, then there could be those who could proceed unilaterally.

The problem with such scenarios is that it is often difficult to tell whether these are real threats or just an exercise of psychological pressure.

When one speaks of ‘painful consequences’, as a senior diplomat recently did, then we have to stand up and listen to gauge the intensity of the situation.

I personally do not know how accurate investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was when he claimed that the Bush administration has actually already increased clandestine activities inside Iran and that its plans for a possible air attack against Iran had gone beyond contingency stage and are now at the operational level.

It is equally difficult to tell whether as a result of the Iranian President’s statements and ‘nuclear’ intentions there could be those who are actually toying with the idea of forcing regime change in Iran – a country with three times the population and geographic size of Iraq.

What worries me more than the fact that there is so much intelligence gathering on such issues is the fact that the intelligence community often gets its facts wrong as was the case in the not too distant past.

Even the American think tank the CSIS had released a report not so long ago which stated that there are still major gaps and uncertainties about the knowledge of Iran’s nuclear programmes, facilities and weapons development efforts.

Although I personally think that bombing Iran should be ruled out a priori, even if this were to be considered an option, one must seriously question whether the intelligence on which such a decision would be based, is reliable or not.

As the London Times recently commented – a military strike now would be illegal under international law. The UN Security Council would never authorise it, since Iran has not breached the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that allows every signatory to develop nuclear energy for peaceful use. However the hawks no longer even talk about the need to get Security Council approval.

It is equally pointless to talk about acting in self-defence.

A pre-emptive strike is justified only to defend against an imminent and certain attack and not against a threat that may emerge in five years time!

As I recently had occasion to say on Smash TV if we really want to fight nukes in the Middle East we should go for a nuclear free Middle Eastern region, particularly when we know quite well that Israel has been long hiding behind nuclear ambiguity to avoid committing itself as to whether it has nukes or not.

The Gulf media – which is not always the most sympathetic towards Iran – have been quick to react to the fact that a nuclear Iran could not possibly carry out its threat of annihilating Israel because it knows if such an enterprise were ever attempted against Israel, it would lead to the annihilation of Iran itself. Then we would have MAD in practice – Mutually Assured Destruction!

I made the point on TV that countries which are likely to possess nukes are threatened more than those who actually have them.

Otherwise how could one explain the fact that in spite of knowing that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons the US has adopted a far less belligerent attitude towards it?

The report that Iran may prompt other Middle Eastern states to go nuclear is not a strategic but a purely political argument that in my opinion does not carry much weight even though statements to this effect have in actual fact been made.

What is sure is that all this saber rattling has led to one thing – to at least a $15 per barrel premium on oil prices related to political tension in the area.

Da Vinci hysteria

Protestors have as much right to protest against The Da Vinci Code as much as I have every right to want to see the movie.

I sincerely hope that with Tom Hanks on board and the director in question having helmed the movie, the film will turn out to be a much better movie than the book was. Particularly since I found it formulaic and far less intriguing and exciting than Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons.

Is it not rather strange that while all these petitions are being drawn up at this stage, there was not a rumble of dissent when controversial sequences of the movie were actually being shot in Malta?

If Labour had over-reacted when it had banned Raid On Entebbe not to offend certain foreigners’ sentiments it would be equally out of sync and discordant to even consider banning The Da Vinci Code in Malta.

If anything these protests will serve one purpose.

They will boost the movie even further at the box office.

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Leo Brincat is the opposition spokesman for Foreign Affairs and IT.