Open letter to UK FCO Ministerial Team about Iran & Syria

As Ministerial Team for the FCO you are well placed to pass on to Boris Johnson MP, our Foreign Secretary, my comments in this open letter on what he tweeted at 4:48pm on 10 May 2018, viz:

"Strongly condemn Iranian rocket attack against Israeli forces. Fully support Israel’s right to defend itself. Urge Iran to refrain from further escalation. Crucial to avoid increased instability in the region"

Although it matches what has been said by our obedient media, that analysis is wrong and dangerous. There is very clear evidence from Israeli and other sources that their attack was preemptive.

On the night of May 9th, Ynetnews, the online English-language website of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s most-widely read newspaper, headlined an “Analysis” article, “A Preemptive Strike in Syria”. It began as follows:

"Even if Iran had no intention of launching missiles at Israel on Tuesday, the alleged Israeli strike came along and conveyed the following message to the Iranians: You raised the likelihood of an attack on Israel, so we’re raising the threat level, despite the tensions."

Their reporter said that the issue now would be, “We’re waiting to see what the Iranians will do: Will they continue the preparations for an attack” or stand down?

That, and any accurate analysis of the timetable of recent hostilities between Israel, Iran and Syria will demonstrate conclusively that Israel has been the aggressor state.

What conceivable justification is there for misleading the British public and the world in general so as to suggest that Iran is the aggressor?

British and European interests have been betrayed by the US administration in its decision to abandon the JCPOA.

Statements by John Bolton and Mike Pompeo suggest that there is substantial pressure in the US administration to try to achieve the well-known Israeli objective of regime-change in Iran.

In the event that the tacit alliance of the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia etc decides to engage in some kind of direct attack against Iran, the UK and others will come under intense pressure to join in and 'do another Iraq'.

That statement by our FM Boris Johnson MP will then prove to have been a useful and timely preemptive justification for some supposedly well-meaning contribution of ours to the resulting disaster.

Your government seems to believe that it can attempt to do almost anything for which it can devise a repeatable narrative.

The difficulty is that while that may be so, yet more attempts at policies that are morally wrong and unlikely to succeed will do us no good.