The Independent on the War

News In the spring of last year, President Bush spoke of an axis of evil, broadening his narrow and failed foreign policy objective of capturing Osama bin Laden to tackling rogue states such as Iraq. Mr Blair popped up shortly afterwards to say that the issue of Iraq had to be "dealt with" or else Saddam would use his weapons of mass destruction. For several months there were nods and winks in Washington and London that Saddam already possessed nuclear weapons. There were equally strong hints that he was directly linked to the 11 September attacks. When there was no evidence of this on either front, the arguments changed. Saddam had to be dealt with because "in the future" he would supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. Tentative and speculative though it is, the link between Iraq and the "war against terrorism" has been established.

Instead of finding increasingly contorted reasons for going to war, President Bush and Mr Blair should think about the possible consequences. As The Independent on Sunday has argued in recent weeks, a war risks fuelling terrorist attacks, with Britain becoming an especially vulnerable target. A military attack, even one that is successful in the short term, threatens to destabilise a fragile region, especially as attempts to revive the Middle East peace process have made little headway.