BRITAIN took sharp issue with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, yesterday over his call in The Times to make Iran the next target for attack after Iraq.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, told Parliament that he did not remotely support the Israeli call. “There is a very significant difference between Iran and Iraq,” he said. “Iraq is a totalitarian dictatorship, while Iran is an emerging democracy.”

Mr Straw was responding to concerns voiced by Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, who commended him for his robust opposition to military action against Iran.

The Foreign Secretary has visited Tehran three times, most recently last month, and has held extensive talks with senior Iranian officials. When President Bush included Iran in his “axis of evil” address to Congress, Mr Straw told reporters that he thought this remark was intended for domestic consumption.

Speaking on BBC radio, Mr Straw said he understood why people in Israel were frightened. But he profoundly disagreed with Mr Sharon. “It would be the gravest possible error to think in that way.”

In an interview published in The Times yesterday, Mr Sharon said that Tehran should be put under pressure “the day after” action against Baghdad ended because of its role as a “centre of world terror”.

British and US senior diplomats were dismissive of Mr Sharon’s call. “The President understands the nuances,” one senior American said. “You can’t paint Iran as totally black in the same way as you do Iraq. It does have a form of democracy, albeit not the one that has turned out the way we want.” He added: “I would have a hard time buying the idea that after victory in Iraq, the US is going to turn its sights on Iran.”

Hamid Reza Asafi, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, called Mr Sharon’s comments “the sinister dream of a war criminal”. He said that the “Zionist regime” was exploiting the September 11 attacks to “fan the flame of militarism around the world”. He said that Israel had occupied Palestinian territories by force and saw its survival in military confrontation and regional conflicts. Therefore it encouraged a worsening of militarism in an attempt to mask the critical situation it faced in the occupied territories.

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