Former prime minister slammed for trying to shift focus onto threat from Tehran during appearance at Chilcot inquiryhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/30/tony-blair-iran-spin-chilcotTony Blair has been accused of warmongering spin for claiming that western powers might be forced to invade Iran because it poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein.
Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran, accused Blair of trying to make confrontation with Iran an electoral issue after the former prime minister repeatedly singled out its Islamic regime as a global threat in his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry yesterday.
Blair said many of the arguments that led him to confront the "profoundly wicked, almost psychopathic" Saddam Hussein seven years ago now applied to the regime in Tehran.
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Dalton, the UK ambassador to Iran from 2002 until 2006, said it was essential that all the political parties made clear in the run-up to the general election that there would be no repeat of Blair's actions in respect of Iran.
"One result of Tony Blair's intervention on Iran – he mentioned Iran 58 times – is to put the question of confronting Iran into play in the election," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"We need to be much clearer, as voters, with our politicians and with our candidates that we expect a different behaviour and a greater integrity in our democracy next time."
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