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 Mary Dejevsky: A misreading of Iran that risks a fatal replay of Iraq There is no evidence at all that Iran colluded with al-Qa'ida Since its misfired election last June, Iran increasingly resembles a curled-up hedgehog: preoccupied with its own difficulties, while projecting general hostility to the outside world. I only hope the impression of introversion is true, because Tehran has been the target of some deeply misguided words, and perhaps also deeds, in recent days. Just now, it would be better if Iran were not listening. From Washington come reports that the US is sending Patriot missiles to the Gulf States, and keeping two warships in the region capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Now Patriots are neither state-of-the-art nor offensive weapons and deploying two warships is hardly the most aggressive stance a superpower can take. But the deployments - or their threat, it is not entirely clear which - hardly send a friendly message, especially not as "spun" to the US media. They speak of contingency planning and expecting the worst. These signals from Washington, though, were a good deal less menacing than the image of Iran that emerged from Tony Blair's testimony to the Iraq Inquiry in London last Friday. A recurrent theme of his self-justification over the war was a nigh-apocalyptic forecast of what role an un-checked Iran might play. Although he was being questioned about Iraq, he mentioned Iran several dozen times, and always in a negative light. In the worldview of the former prime minister, Iran came across as the next threat to global peace. George Bush's "axis of evil", it seems, never really went away; the overthrow of Saddam Hussein merely reduced its membership by one. But Mr Blair's analysis fatally, and doubtless deliberately, confused cause and effect. Iran is only as powerful as it is today because of the vacuum created in Iraq by the US and British invasion. We are fortunate, in fact, that because of its own post-election turmoil, it is not even more dominant than it is. The notion that Iran - in league with al-Qa'ida - fomented the violence that ravaged Iraq in the latter part of 2003 and 2004, rather than exploiting it, has no basis at all in either the facts or the sequence of what happened. In the intervening days, we have had two categorical rebuttals of the Blair version from people unimpeachably qualified to know. Sir Richard Dalton, Britain's ambassador in Iran at the time, accused him of fundamentally misreading the situation. Iraq then and Iran now, he said, were quite different situations. There was no evidence that Iran and al-Qa'ida had colluded to destabilise Iraq's reconstruction, he said, and there was no precedent for a nuclear-capable state passing its secrets to terrorists - one of the catastrophe scenarios held out by Mr Blair. Yesterday, testifying to the same Iraq Inquiry, General Lord Walker, who was Chief of Defence Staff as the violence spread, said that he had no evidence of anything more than…

  Brendan Smialowsky for The New York  Immigration Issue Poses a Complex Test for 2 PartiesBy ADAM NAGOURNEYWASHINGTON — Senator John McCain of Arizona took to the Senate floor the other day to embrace a tough new Arizona law giving the police the authority to detain people they suspect are illegal immigrants. Mr. McCain, long an outspoken champion of giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, is facing a primary challenge this summer from a conservative who backs tough immigration measures. This week, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, abruptly announced that the Senate would take up an immigration bill to address both enhanced border security and citizenship, even in the face of daunting odds. Mr. Reid also faces a tough re-election battle, and his advisers believe that Hispanic voters in Nevada could prove key to his re-election. The immigration flare-up that has engulfed Washington has emerged as a political challenge for Republicans and Democrats alike as they struggle to deal with the complexities and emotions of an issue that is scrambling party and geographic lines. On Tuesday, two prominent Republicans in Florida, another state with a big immigrant population — Jeb Bush, the former governor, and Marco Rubio, a candidate for the Senate — expressed reservations about the Arizona law, even as other Republican lawmakers supported it. In the short term, Mr. Reid’s vow to tackle immigration legislation this year could hurt some Democrats in the fall elections, causing problems with voters who view immigrants as competition for tough-to-find jobs and illegal immigration as a drain on social services, analysts from both parties said. That could especially be a problem for first- and second-term Democrats representing blue-collar states particularly hard hit by the recession. But the Republican Party could face long-term risks if it is identified with legislation cracking down on illegal immigration at a time when Hispanic voters are emerging as an increasingly large and engaged part of the American electorate. The Arizona law has enraged many Hispanic groups, who see it as a form of racial profiling. “Immigration is the most explosive issue I’ve seen in my political career,” said Mark McKinnon, who was a senior adviser both to Mr. McCain and to President George W. Bush, who also supported giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. “This is an issue on which Republicans salivate over short-term gains without much thought to the longer-term damage it will do the party,” Mr. McKinnon said. But, he said: “Arizona may force the Democrats’ hand to push for immigration reform. Unfortunately, an election year is the worst time to move good public policy on this issue.” Both parties agree on the need…

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'Stress has previously been shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as stroke, heart attack and hypertension.'Read Article