At last...

Even Iain Macwhirter 'doesn't get it'. The Sunday Herald opines:

"Britain has been dragged into the frontline of an unnecessary conflict by leaders who seem unable or unwilling to understand the magnitude of their failure. The invasion and occupation of a Muslim nation, under the bogus pretext of removing weapons of mass destruction, was seen by many in the Muslim world as a war crime. The chaos in Iraq and the daily death toll testify to the folly of the policy, as does the continuing threat from terrorist bombing in the West, which the invasion of Iraq was supposed to eradicate. And still, in their uncritical support of Israel, Tony Blair and George W Bush are alienating the entire Muslim world from Birmingham to Baghdad.

We are led by fools, global agents provocateurs who exploited our fears of terrorism to justify a show of force in the Middle East that has only demonstrated their weakness. Who pretend they are Churchills and Roosevelts defending Western civilisation, but who have, by their own stupidity and ignorance of history, undermined the very foundation of that civilisation by flouting international law and the human rights conventions established by the victors of the second world war. Who lecture the world on liberty and freedom while dismantling civil liberties at home.

And now, after the abortive bottle bombs, comes another raft of security measures
from a hard-man Home Secretary, John Reid, who is clearly revelling in this “super-critical” terror alert. A Spinal Tap statesman turning his level up to 11, who says “traditional concepts of individual rights and freedom are outmoded in the face of the 21st-century terror threat”, insulting the memory of the millions who died in the 20th century to defend those rights and freedoms.

Oh yes, Mr Reid, we get it, all right. Your “war” is possibly the greatest policy disaster ever perpetrated by democratically elected leaders. And it was lost even before it began."

Great stuff; and it is worth reading the whole article. If even the relatively mild-mannered (if occasionally cynical) Mr Macwhirter is prepared to issue denunciations in such uncompromising terms, then perhaps the government are in more trouble than they think.