Back in 2002-2003, the Murdoch press lauded Tony Blair for utilising his public speaking skills to press the case for war against Iraq in a far more effective manner than President Bush could ever hope to do.

So, sitting in the audience last night at a fundraiser in New York, Rupert Murdoch must have been pleased when Blair volunteered his services once more, pressing the case for action again, this time against Iran. Iran was sponsoring an evil extremist ideology that needed to be confronted, Blair said:

"Analogies especially with the rise of fascism can be misleading but, in pure chronology, I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s, if not the 1930s, I fear ... This ideology now has a state - Iran that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace ... When terror opposes that which is right, we must commit to defeating it not with half a heart but whole-heartedly."

As David Cox suggests in an article on Cif, Blair's speech, which comes hot on the heels of another bellicose warning to the Iranians from the US president, should really cause all of us to shudder.

If any country can be said to be an ideological influence on al-Qaida, it would surely be the Saudi kingdom, not Iran. Bin Laden is a Saudi and Saudi Arabia was home, you will recall, to 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11. And by all accounts, al-Qaida still receives some support from individuals inside the Saudi kingdom, whereas Iran with its Shia government is despised vehemently by the avowedly anti-Shia al-Qaida. So why are Blair and his neo-con chums not gunning for the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy?

Saudi Arabia is, of course, a loyal client state of the United States, whereas Iran's main sin is that since its 1979 Islamic revolution, for all its many failures and inadequacies, it has been a far more independent nation than most in the Middle East and dares to follow a foreign policy agenda which does not exactly conform to the US vision of how the Middle East should be.

If Blair really believes it is wrong to destabilise other countries, why did he not utter a word about the millions of dollars the United States unashamedly spends in trying to destabilise the Iranian government? If Blair is so exercised by terrorism why did he - standing alone with Bush among world leaders - turn a blind eye to Israel's indiscriminate bombing and invasion of Lebanon last summer? Were the families of the hundreds of Lebanese killed by Israeli bombs not deserving of our sympathy and help every bit as much as those of the victims of 9/11?

In a blog earlier this year I wrote about how Britain had played a key role in the 1953 coup that toppled the democratically-elected Iranian leader, Muhammad Musaddiq, and reinstated the despotic rule of the Shah. It seems as if another Great Game is about to start once again.

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