You felt for her as the audience and the other panellists laughed in her face, especially as she attempted to remind people that we have a UN and that reactions needed to be modulated and agreed by that august body. There it is again, that glint in Blair's eyes, seeking another folly, another chapter for his dodgy legacy, another theatre to use our weaponry and wealth to show upstart nations who is boss.Domestically, commentators talk of Blair as a busted flush, a leader whose hold on his Cabinet is slipping away. On this week's Any Questions, poor Tessa Jowell tried pathetically to defend Blair's authority. The UN, the EU, our Parliament, Russia, China, even the new sober generation of civic Palestinian leaders, Israel obviously, and reformers within Iran have come out to express their alarm and dismay, clear rejoinders to the speech made by a leader who was once Mayor of Tehran and was elected to his present position only three months ago.The hateful Ahmadinejad is the worst thing to happen to Iran in recent years. A mean, lean little man with little parts and even less imagination, his restless inadequacy grasps at cruel despotism, nuclear military ambitions and religious certainties. His best friends are the Revolutionary Guards and "immorality" police who are once again beating up women and girls who dare let a wisp of hair escape the hijab.
To see him isolated is heartening.But when Blair and Bush and the grisly John Bolton, US Ambassador to the UN, start to strut and warn Iran off with imperial arrogance, my outrage against Ahmadinejad is overwritten by fear and revulsion provoked by these leaders who have already led Iraq into such bloody chaos that it isn't even a state any more. It is also legitimate strongly to criticise the actions and policies of successive Israeli governments. But Israel exists, and it must, a post-Second World War sanctuary for Jewish people persecuted for 2,000 years. And it is vital for progressive Muslims to stand up and say so.The president's remarks have been condemned by the righteous across the globe, and by individuals who like to believe they are righteous.
Tehran is always willing to join in with "spontaneous" agitation, flag burning and marches to register defiance of the West while their own liberties are strangled noiselessly.It is not wrong to deplore the way Europe created Israel and the brutal cynicism with which the anti-Semitic European continent deported its own guilt to the Middle East, stealing the land of Palestinians who were not responsible for the Holocaust but were asked to pay for it with their lives and their inheritance. My brain feels as if it is a squash court, balls hitting various points, then another, and another with confusing speed and force, a repetitive condition if you are, as so many of us are, people who seek to push for a more equal and decent world where might is not right and universal rights and obligations are incumbent on all Ahmadinejand said Israel should be "wiped off the map" Hitler couldn't have put it better. The F?r would have played the audience similarly - a conference of emotive students marking Jerusalem Day, who would readily rise to imagine the glorious obliteration of the Jewish state. You know the type, furious people like millions of others across the Middle East, disenfranchised and stamped on by their own leaders, who displace their anger by turning their eyes on Israel, lusting for its annihilation in a kind of political pornography which provides temporary relief but can only lead to a greater sense of hopeless impotence and homeless rage. So the president picked the right crowd for his demagoguery, the right place too. Let me try and describe to you my reactions since the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made his deplorable and inflammatory remarks last week. Having staged a rehabilitation, of sorts, with the 2003 film Gothika (including a meeting with his now wife, producer Susan Levin), he is now earning rave reviews for his leading role in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a tongue-in-cheek postmodern romp of a movie about actors imitating private eyes, and vice versa. The film comes out in the UK on 11 November.Friends and colleagues insist Downey is now clean, and as engaging and brilliant as ever.
