This is, quite clearly a hot topic – and I have tried to leave this for as long as possible before making a comment on it so I don’t have to either a) keep on editing the post or b) keep on posting updates.

Iran have got themselves and us into a bit of a fix. We’re both at a stage where neither of us can back down without looking weak. Quite simply – we’re stuck.
Neither the UK or the Iranian governments are going to admit that the other is right – no matter whether it is true or false – and I think that they are probably both at a stage in the preceedings where even if their data is fabricated (on either side) then they will start to believe it.
The communication from within Iran has been used totally ineffectively – starting a letter with:

Dear Representative of the House of Commons

– what kind of a brit would *ever* use that – and if they did, they’d fail New Labour’s citizenship test.

Therefore the demands within that letter – withdrawal from Iraq – cannot be taken seriously, however the opposite is true of the treatment of the soldiers as even if this was written by Faye Turney’s hand, it certainly didn’t contain her own words, therefore her own beliefs – and therefore necesarily the truth.

So, both in this post, and in the situation – we’ve got nowhere. The UN has proved itself to be useless – the EU is doing what it always does, offer mindless chatter but no action and meanwhile Mugabe’s Zimbabwe looks set to have to endure another half decade of violence, torture and general persecution because the African continent is afraid to stand up for itself.

As I’ve just expressed in this post on Twitter I’m a) not feeling great and b) not in a good mood (as a result of both that and also an argument in a restaurant earlier) so apologies for the slightly rambling nature of this post and as ever, I’m offering a vaguely reasonable excuse.

Well, as of 0300 GMT this morning Saddam Hussein is no more, but I still have not been convinced that the death penalty was the right way to punish him.

For one, it isn’t much of a punishment – he is now seen as a martyr for the cause – especially in the eyes of his supporters.

The Americans are still occupying Iraq – therefore it is not the Iraqi’s justice, but Bush’s. Another death, after so many will solve nothing. Whatsoever.

There are much better punishments and the trial should have been in an international court like similar trials before – morally sounder and juster – but the American’s wouldn’t support it.

Oh, and I support the Government on this one:

“The British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else. We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime.”
Margret Beckett – Foreign Secretary

And I could go on for days about the nature of the war in Iraq itself. We were lied to. Simple as that – so why are we still interfering?