Former British foreign secretary Robin Cook has created a political firestorm by calling on Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw Britain's troops from Iraq immediately.
The call, which came in an article in the anti-war Sunday Mirror, has thrown down a challenge to Blair, who has alienated many of his own parliamentarians by his alliance with what they regard as the far-right US administration of President George W. Bush.
Earlier this month, Blair was faced with the largest rebellion by his own legislators of any prime minister in British parliamentary history.
Cook, who resigned from the cabinet in protest at British involvement in the war without a specific mandate from the UN Security Council, denounced the military campaign in Iraq as "bloody and unjust."
He also warned that Britain and America risked stoking up a "long-term legacy of hatred" for the West throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
Cook said Bush and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not appear to know what to do now that their hopes for a swift Iraqi capitulation failed to materialize.
The call, which came in an article in the anti-war Sunday Mirror, has thrown down a challenge to Blair, who has alienated many of his own parliamentarians by his alliance with what they regard as the far-right US administration of President George W. Bush.
Earlier this month, Blair was faced with the largest rebellion by his own legislators of any prime minister in British parliamentary history.
Cook, who resigned from the cabinet in protest at British involvement in the war without a specific mandate from the UN Security Council, denounced the military campaign in Iraq as "bloody and unjust."
He also warned that Britain and America risked stoking up a "long-term legacy of hatred" for the West throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
Cook said Bush and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not appear to know what to do now that their hopes for a swift Iraqi capitulation failed to materialize.
