It’s unusual to hear frank talk of war at a confab devoted to the peaceful advances of globalization. But here on Day One at Davos, war talk was in the air. War, to be specific, between Iran and the U.S.

At a morning session devoted to the Middle East, and run by prominent business and political figures from the region, an agenda devoted to the broad topics of peaceful reform was quickly overshadowed by the idea that the Bush Administration would start a war against the mullah-dominated regime of Tehran. The discussants seemed convinced President George Bush would try to checkmate Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and snuff out a nascent military nuclear program. The feeling was that Bush, with little to lose politically, would unleash an attack in a final gambit to reverse America’s declining fortune in the Middle East.

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New US strategy on Iran emerges from Davos

The real value of Davos is in making connections - not just in the sense of networking and schmoozing with important people, but also in relating seemingly disparate events and ideas. Overtly the main themes at Davos today were terrorism and Iraq � and the story, as presented publicly by Iraqi and US politicians and officials, was all about wresting back control of Baghdad from terrorists, with al-Qaeda and Shia death squads bearing equal blame. In contrast to American officials, who simply repeated President Bush�s mantra that “failure is not an option”, Iraqi politicians have a more realistic and nuanced view.

As Abd Al-Mahdi, the Vice-President, noted privately after his appearance at a plenary session: “The Americans actually have two options: either they stay or they withdraw. But we Iraqis don�t have any options. If we don�t succeed on ending the violence with the present strategy, we just have to be patient and keep trying. Unlike the Americans, we don�t have an exit strategy from Iraq.” The same was true, he noted, of Iraq�s neighbours Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. This was why Iraqi politicians were constantly urging President Bush to start talking to Iraq�s neighbours and warning the White House that any military attack on Iranian nuclear installations, whether by America or Israel, could spill over catastrophically into Iraq.

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