Iran undoubtedly pulled off a diplomatic coup with its announcement yesterday of a deal with Brazil and Turkey to store its low grade uranium. It is very hard for even the most ardent warmonger to claim that Iran is enriching uranium to make nuclear weapons, when that same uranium is in storage in Turkey. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2010/may/17/iran-brazil-turkey-nuclear1 [...]

The British government, mainstream parties and the mainstream media never mention Israel’s nuclear weapons, even when pontificating about the effect of potential Iranian nuclear weapons on the balance of power in the Middle East. Consistent with that, no amount of googling brings up any British mainstream media mention of the fact that whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu [...]

I am delighted for Peter Moore and his family. The invasion of Iraq was very wrong, but Peter Moore was not a combatant or engaged in reprehensible occupation activities. My own FCO contacts tell me two interesting things: firstly that claims there was something sensitive and secret about Peter Moore’s IT work, aimed at Iran, [...]

I will never understand why so many on the political left will excuse any bad behaviour by anybody so long as their general stance is anti-US foreign policy and anti-Zionist. I write this as somebody who is firmly anti-US foreign policy and anti-Zionist. Why is it that the left cannot see that it voids their [...]

One of this blog’s finest hours came when I was able to point out that the British Navy personnel captured by Iran were quite possibly in Iranian waters, and that the British government had produced a fake boundary map with no legal basis to justify its claims. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/03/fake_maritime_b.html Coming as it did in the middle [...]

I received this rather exasperated response from Annika Thunborg, spokesperson at CTBTO: there was no professional connection or areas of interaction whatsoever between the two persons who died eleven months apart in two completely different buildings at the UN in Vienna at which about 7000 people in total work and visit every day. For questions [...]

The UN wishes us to know that there is nothing to bother about in the death of Timothy Hampton. Here is their press release: Note to Editors, There have been many misconceptions in the media related to the death of one of our staff members on 20 October, 2009. For the record, we would like [...]

One of my passionate convictions is a belief in international law to govern relations between nations and to establish basic rules of humanitarian conduct within nations. A comment on my last posting asked by what right the Royal Navy was intercepting vessels carrying narcotics on the High Seas. In one sense the answer is straightforward, [...]

Gordon Brown is making the headlines this morning with an offer to cut the Trident II deterrent from four to three submarines. While something of an improvement on New Labour’s previous stance of unthinking macho pro-nuclear posturing, it still goes nowhere near addressing the fundamental futility of Trident. Who is it meant to deter? In [...]

For me, any sensible discussion of Iran must accept a number of facts. I will set these out as Set A and Set B. Both sets are true. But ideologues of the right routinely discount Set A, while ideologues of the left routinely discount Set B. That is why most debate on Iran is inane. [...]

On Newsnight last night, Jeremy Paxman challenged UK Ambassador Peter Gooderham and obtained the information that the walkout had been agreed upon by EU states before the session, ie before they heard a word Ahmadinejad had said. They did not have a text in advance. This stunt was a combination of the pompous and the [...]

Iran and Israel are both guilty of repeated abuse of human rights. In Iran, the jailing of Roxana Saberi for spying is an injustice, and a deliberate slap in the face to genuine overtures from Obama to cool the diplomatic temperature. But it is a comparatively small transgression in Iran, a country which executes gays [...]

Barack Obama’s speech in Prague today contains the headline catching idea that the US will work to lead the way to a World free of nuclear weapons. We will see how he takes that forward. It is a good aspiration and his speech in detail was an acknowledgement of the obvious but often denied fact [...]

There are times when the shamelessness of our government is breathtaking. For Gordon Brown to stand craving approval from the assembly that controls the World’s largest illegal arsenal of nuclear weapons, without mentioning that fact, is craven. To stand there and try to stoke populist support for war against Iran, because of its far less [...]

As the mad brinkmanship proceeds in the Middle East, it is worth bearing a few things in mind. 1) There is only one country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons, and it is a highly aggressive racist state that visits untold misery on its neighbours and illegally occupies their land. It is called [...]

From the Sunday Telegraph Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears [...]

Having launched a disastrous war to destroy non-existent weapons in the Middle East, Bush and Rice have now decided that the best solution is to deluge the Middle East in over $60billion dollars worth of weapons. The distribution is to be done in such a way as especially to reward those countries with very bad [...]

From news.com.au A BRITISH map of the northern Gulf where Iran seized 15 naval personnel in March was not as accurate as it should have been and Britain was fortunate Iran did not contest it, a review into the crisis said. The parliamentary report also said Britain’s Foreign Office should name the person who let [...]

I have just sent this letter to the Editor of the Guardian, not for publication: Alan, We have never met, although the Guardian was good enough to give me a column during the general election campaign, and I have written several comment pieces for you since. I admit there are people in this country, a [...]

By Simon Tisdall in Guardian Online Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq “Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it’s a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces,” a senior US official in [...]