WHEN Tony Blair called the fighting in Lebanon a catastrophe yesterday the response of his Iraqi counterpart was blunt.

The Israeli onslaught was, in fact, beyond catastrophe and would only boost extremism in Baghdad, Nouri al-Maliki said on his first official visit to London. He said that the broader effect of the two-week-old war would spur “a great push towards fundamentalism and extremism” in the region.

Images of Lebanese suffering were a grave setback in the search for stability in Iraq, he added. “It will be a negative message for all those who want peaceful resolutions and to follow international law,” he said.

Mr al-Maliki, who will deliver a similar message to President Bush in Washington today, joined calls for an immediate ceasefire. He knows that the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict has eclipsed even the daily carnage on the streets of Iraq as an international priority.

But by linking the two crises so directly he is effectively arguing that if his two closest Western allies want to achieve fundamental change in the Middle East they cannot do so in two places at once.

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq has estimated that more than 5,800 civilians were killed in Iraq in May and June, dwarfing casualty numbers in southern Lebanon.

Mr al-Maliki’s heavily publicised strategy to reassert control in Baghdad by flooding it with troops has failed so far, but he is expected to announce the assignment of as many as 4,000 additional soldiers to the capital, including an extra brigade of US troops.

Sectarian death squads have overtaken anti-coalition insurgents as the main perpetrators of violence, bringing de facto segregation to much of Baghdad.

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