Iran is still liable to a military strike

Just when a US strike on Iran was beginning to look increasingly unlikely, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan announce they won't allow their soil to be used as a launching pad for such an attack.

Mohamad ElBaradei, head of the nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, last Friday warned against such an operation, describing it as an act of madness.

The question is: what do they know that we don't?

For awhile, it looked as though the White House warmongers had dropped Iran like a hot potato. They had enough problems in Iraq and, in any case, the public was in no mood for another gamble in this part of the world.

It was generally believed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's less confrontational strategy vis-à -vis Iran's nuclear enrichment programme, more reliant on diplomacy than military threats, was winning through. US Vice President Dick Cheney's hawkish voice was beginning to sound alone and lonely.

The pummel-Iraq crowd may have wandered off in disgrace but we are left with an entirely different chorus that wants to have a go at Iran.

These include Senator Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat, who last week told CBS: "I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military actions against Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq".

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