The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
10 Downing Street,
London, SW1A 2AA

London, 8 May 2006

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

Articles in the New Yorker and Washington Post last month report that the US government has already put plans for a military attack against Iran into their operational phase, that the US military is already active inside Iran to prepare for surgical strikes against Iranian nuclear plants and that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran is being actively considered by Pentagon planners and by the White House. President Bush has since then alarmingly refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Iran.

The ex-Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, had stressed in his statements on the Iranian nuclear issue that there is no smoking gun, no proof that Iran has a weaponization programme, and therefore no justification for the use of force. According to the Independent on Sunday, these statements have reportedly cost him his job under pressure from the Bush Administration.

Any pre-emptive attack led by the US against Iran will no doubt take place without any explicit UN approval and thus in violation of the UN Charter and international law. It will lead to a major conflagration in that volatile region of the world and is bound to result in a sharp escalation in anti-Western sentiments as well as in extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism.

Military strikes will unite the people of Iran to rally behind their government in order to resist the West, will cause a prolonged war with massive loss of human life and destruction to the country, and will set back the cause of building civil society in that part of the world for decades.

The use of any tactical nuclear weapons will not only be catastrophic and criminal but will end the post Second World War international order, which can lead to a massive rise in nuclear arms race in all parts of the globe, threatening regional and global nuclear wars.

As individuals who come from different walks of life and as organisations campaigning for peace and justice in the world, we support the recent letter by a host of prominent US physicists to President George W. Bush urging him to rule out the option of using tactical nuclear strikes against Iran. We also urge you to publicly condemn any covert military operations by the US against Iran and use all the influence of the UK government to prevent the US from launching a military attack on that country.

We urge you to commit the UK to resolve all outstanding issues regarding the Iranian nuclear programme in a peaceful manner.

Signed,

General Sir Hugh Beach - former Deputy Commander-in-Chief United Kingdom Land Forces

Tony Benn

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Professor Abbas Edalat, Imperial College London, Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran

Professor Henrik J. Jensen, Imperial College London

Professor Robert A. Hinde, CBE, FRS, FBA, Cambridge University - Chairman British Pugwash

Dr Elaheh Rostami-Povey, University of London

Professor Reza Tavakol, FRAS, Queen Mary University of London

Professor David Wand, University of Portsmouth