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Iraq and the wider Middle East

That has become clear, and I am pleased that my hon. Friends have made those points, as, clearly, the debate is limited in time. Last night, President Bush gave the State of the Union address. He was not the gung-ho President Bush of 2002, whose axis of evil speech promised war all over the world. He was a President desperately trying to find some way forward. He was offered a way out by the Iraq Study Group, which he seemed to reject, and has now gone for the bizarre option of putting in more troops to try to control the situation. President Bush will be for ever remembered as the President who got bogged down in the war in Iraq, just as President Johnson is remembered as the President who was bogged down in the war in Vietnam. He knows what the opinion polls in the United Sates are telling him; the Prime Minister knows what opinion polls in this country are saying. There is worldwide condemnation of the war, the strategy behind it and the crazy thinking that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) pointed out, leads inexorably to yet more wars. Is the United States now planning seriously for a war against Iran and the conflagration that that will cause all over the region? Members of the House have a duty to try to tell our own Government about public opinion in this country. We must also give them a message that, yes, there is enormous opposition to the war in Iraq, but if they tried to get involved in a war against Iran, the opposition would be even greater, not because we support the Iranian regime, but because we do not want Iranian people killed.