An attack on Iraq won't be an attack on "terrorism". There is no evidence whatsoever that Iraq had anything to do with the events of September 11th in New York and Washington, or the events of November 12th in Bali and so on and so forth. Like many countries, including Britain, the United States, Russia and Israel (for starters) the government in Iraq has been guilty of actions which can very properly be described as "terrorist", but that is another matter.

So far no convincing evidence has been produced that Iraq currently possesses weapons of mass destruction, or has any ability or wish to use such weapons against other countries.

Talking about this as if it were part of "a war against terrorism" is poppycock. What it is is, a cynical determination to use the widespread revulsion against these appalling atrocities as a lever to enable those in power in Washington to carry out an attack on a relatively very much weaker country which was already on the agenda, for reasons which have nothing to do with "a war against terrorism", and a lot to do with controlling that part of the world, and ensuring that its natural resources are available.

And that is what I mean, Amos, by classing it as a latter-day example of a classical "colonial war" (which were often against extremely unpleasant regimes) rather than as comparable to the World Wars. The essential thing about those is that they were in some sense wars between equals, and at this stage that is the last thing that can be said about what is in front of us.

In the longer run one of the consequences of what happens could well be to change that, and that is really frightening. And that I believe is the game plan of those who set things in motion on September 11th - and they are winning. In which case it will retrospectivey be possible to define that as the opening salvoes in a Third World War.