A group of peace and environment campaigners has banded together with a number of federal MPs to urge the Federal Government against supporting military action against Iran. Iran is under increasing pressure to halt its nuclear work after a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found the nation has ignored a UN Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment.
The IAEA says Iran is instead speeding up its nuclear program. US President George Bush has promised to search for a diplomatic solution to the impasse. Friends of the Earth Australia spokesman John Hallam says Foreign Minister Alexander Downer should go one step further and rule out the use of military force.
"If military action against Iran is not ruled out, then it will have an entirely perverse effect," he said. "It will guarantee positively that we get the very thing that we say we don't want, namely a bitterly hostile, nuclear-armed Iran."
In a letter to Mr Downer, the group says the Federal Government needs to do everything in its power to discourage the US from any reckless course of action.
"The possibility of military action and indeed, still the possibility of even a nuclear strike is very real," Mr Hallam said.
"That's not to say that it's going to happen and I hope and pray and trust that it won't but it's on the table and it shouldn't be on the table. "It needs to be taken off the table."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1626628.htm