SAY it loud – if the Islamic Republic of Iran has nuclear bombs, it is very bad news for this country, the free world and the human race.
We are right to be wary of western intervention in the Middle East.
The invasion of Iraq eventually gave birth to Islamic State.
Western intervention in Afghanistan left the women-hating Taliban in power.
But all arguments for appeasement return to one question.
Can the free world live with nuclear-armed Mullahs?
The Islamist fanatics in Tehran shout the rhetoric of extermination — against Israel, the Great Satan (the US) and Little Satan (us).
We have no choice but to take them seriously.
Iran’s leaders are in the last- chance nuclear saloon.
President Trump has sensibly given them two weeks to stop building nuclear weapons.
All of Trump’s instincts are to avoid armed conflict. “Going into the Middle East is the worst decision ever made!”, he raged in 2019.
Trump campaigned for his second term as a deal-maker, a peacemaker, an America-Firster more at home on the golf course than the battlefield.
But sometimes we must fight for our freedom — and survival.
If Iran cannot be persuaded to give up their nukes peacefully, then conflict can’t be avoided.
Unless we are prepared to see nukes in the hands of a regime that would rejoice to see us exterminated.
Even Trump supporters are against the idea of the US once again playing Earth’s policeman.
“Drop Israel,” urges Tucker Carlson, traditionally Trump’s greatest cheerleader. “Let them fight their own wars.”
This is the MAGA line — abandon old allies, step away from NATO, let the freeloading foreigners fight their own wars. Don’t get involved, dude!
But all the experts agree that Israel simply does not have the firepower to eradicate Iran’s nuclear weapon programme.
Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment plant is inside a mountain.
Destroying it requires American hardware.
Specifically, it requires American Stealth bombers carrying 30,000lb bunker-busting bombs.
Right to worry
And even that may not be enough.
Trump has given Iran’s Mullahs every chance to abort their plans.
They should take it.
As the world steels itself, it is worth stating — the Iranian people are not our enemy.
Iran has been a sponsor of global terror, but nobody has suffered more under Tehran’s religious fanatics than the people.
Iranian women have been beaten to death for daring to remove their hijab.
Any military intervention should be a last resort to remove the possibility of Iran ever having nuclear weapons.
It should not be the start of a war against the Iranian people.
We are right to worry about bombs falling on the nuclear facility.
Europe does not want to see millions more refugees on the move. Or a Chernobyl-like disaster.
But what should we fear more?
Bombs dropped on fanatics who would dance on our graves — or a nuclear-armed Iran?
Rachel a streetwise Eva Peron
AT 9pm sharp every night on London’s Argyll Street, the strolling West End crowds are greeted by an astonishing sight.
Rachel Zegler, radiant Hollywood superstar, appears on a balcony dressed as Eva Peron and belts out a version of Don’t Cry For Me Argentina that is so damn good you hope Madonna and Elaine Paige never hear it.
What a voice. What a performance. And what a shock to the system if you have been doing a spot of late-night shopping.
Rachel – star of Snow White and Spielberg’s West Side Story reboot – is playing Argentina’s Eva Peron in Evita at the London Palladium until September.
And for the show’s defining moment, every night, she comes off the Palladium stage, on to that balcony overlooking Argyll Street, and she sings – like a cross between Aretha Franklin and an angel.
Ticket holders who have paid to see the show watch Zegler’s performance on a TV monitor.
One punter wrote: “Sorry – are you saying I’ve paid £350 for two tickets and she’s singing the biggest number outside at people who HAVEN’T paid?”
Er, yes. Like so many current West End shows, Evita has trigger warnings – telling fans not to be alarmed by loud music and flashing lights.
But the greatest shock is that anyone expecting to see Rachel Zegler belt out Don’t Cry For Me Argentina should not be sitting in the Palladium.
They should be standing in the street outside.
Do not Tipp-ex truth
DOES the English language contain a more pathetically inadequate euphemism than “Asian grooming gang”?
Somehow that does not cover the worst sexual abuse scandal in British history.
Asian – you mean Chinese? Or Indian? No, we don’t mean that at all, do we?
And grooming gang – what a criminally pitiful understatement for the systemic mass rape of white working-class girls.
Why do we struggle to get our heads around the enormity of what has happened in Bradford, Rotherham, Manchester and a dozen other northern cities?
Why do we find it so hard, even now, to look the truth in the eye?
Because the truth is unbearable.
Baroness Casey’s report is devastating. In 200 searing, traumatic pages, one paragraph screams for attention.
In the report of one child victim, the word “Pakistani” was Tipp-Exed out.
The announcement of an inquiry into over-whelmingly Pakistani gangs abusing vulnerable white children is long overdue.
Let us – finally – hear the truth about how thousands of girls were failed by cops, Labour councils and social workers.
No more turning away for fear of looking racist. No more whitewashing.
And no more Tipp-Ex.
Heely idiotic
EYEBROWS are raised at the sight of Balenciaga’s highly impractical high-heel trainers – yours for £820.
But doesn’t every generation wear unfeasible footwear?
I can vividly remember the numerous occasions during the glam rock days when Billericay High Street chuckled as I fell from my platform boots like some kamikaze member of the Glitter Band.
Mind you, my platform boots did not cost 820 quid.
Rock on, Rod
GEARING up for Glastonbury next week, Sir Rod Stewart – 80-and-a-half years old – reveals that he has had a sprint track installed in his Essex back garden.
“I keep myself very fit,” he says. “I have an indoor pool.
“Frank Sinatra once said to me, ‘Rod, the secret of being a great singer is having powerful lungs. Do lots of underwater swimming’.”
We can’t all have a sprint track in our back garden and health tips from Sinatra.
But we can all be inspired by remarkable Rod, who says he still loves a drink.
Rod Stewart once showed us how to be young.
Now he is showing us how to grow old.
Oasis fans quite something
LIAM GALLAGHER bristles at an Edinburgh council official referring to Oasis fans as “fat, drunk and rowdy”.
Liam – mate – do you really want an Oasis crowd to be svelte, sober and polite?
Even in middle age, Oasis fans always are mad for it.
And never slightly sensible for it.
Reign man Cruise
TOM CRUISE is to be awarded an honorary Oscar after being nominated four times.
He was nominated for Best Actor twice, for Born On The Fourth Of July and Jerry Maguire, Best Supporting Actor for Magnolia and Best Picture for Top Gun: Maverick.
For my money, Cruise deserved an Oscar for his career-defining performance opposite Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, playing a spoilt brat on the skids who learns to love because of his relationship with his disabled brother.
If you doubt that the Cruiser is a great actor, have another look at Rain Man.
If Tom Cruise had a face like the back of a number 73 bus, he would have half a dozen Oscars by now.
Just Japan things
IN Japan, a shinkansen (bullet train) driver apologises to his passengers for being 35 seconds late and assures everyone on board they will be given a full refund for this unforgivably sub-standard service.
The train was 35 seconds late?
In Japan, they apologise.In the UK, we would be weeping with joy.
End is nigh street
ONE of the UK’s oldest shops, W.H. Mogford & Son in Bristol, a beautiful and beloved hardware store, is closing its doors this September.
It is a miracle that it has survived for 160 years.
Around 13,500 high street retailers closed their doors for ever last year, at a cost of 169,000 jobs.
Our high streets have been battered by online shopping.
Car-hating councils.
A Labour government with zero business experience hiking National Insurance contributions for employers.
And apathetic police forces who stand aside for brazen shoplifters, as passive as gendarmes on the beaches of northern France.
Shop local when you can.
Spend your money in your community.
The British high street is dying.
And our lives will be diminished when it has gone.
