A rare sighting of common-sense at the Guardian. Andrew Anthony, whose opposition to the Iraq war apparently remains unchanged, nevertherless can't stomach the cant, dishonesty and unreason of at least some of those on his side of the argument. He has understood a number of important truths, the first of which is the unwitting encouragement given to al Qaeda by the Spanish electorate. He goes on:

'The response of some in the Stop the War coalition to the Atocha atrocity is reminiscent of the Eloi in HG Wells The Time Machine, who assumed a position of abject defeatism when attacked by the Morlocks, thinking it better not to get involved. The statement, however, that almost makes me want to campaign for George Bush's re-election was published in last week's New Statesman. It reads: "The current threat of attacks in countries whose governments have close alliances with Washington is the latest stage in a long struggle against the empires of the west, their rapacious crusades and domination. The motivation of those who plant bombs in railway carriages derives directly from this truth."

'No, that wasn't the latest tape message from Bin Laden, that was written by John Pilger. As George Orwell wrote about a previous generation's blind spot: "One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

'There were serious political, moral and pragmatic arguments against waging war on Iraq, just as there are good reasons for now wanting the UN to oversee its reconstruction. But they have seldom been voiced by the anti-war movement. One of the best arguments against starting the war was that the withdrawal of troops that the Stop the War coalition is still calling for would today lead to a catastrophic civil war. But such awkward realities have seldom been the concern of the anti-war movement. Instead it has busied itself with myth production - a war for oil, a war against Muslims, and now a war that is responsible for the bombs that everyone seems to think are inevitably going to explode in this country.

'Just for the record, the Bali bomb, which killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists, happened six months before the invasion of Iraq. The motive, as Clive James has said, had nothing to do with Iraq, much less Palestine. It was because the bombers didn't like the way westerners danced.

'As Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief counter- terrorism adviser has just confirmed, post-September 11, the US administration tried in the face of all available evidence to conflate al-Qaida and Iraq. Now, post March 11, the anti-war movement is guilty of attempting to do exactly the same. It's time to accept that the battle against the war in Iraq has been lost. Instead, attention should now be turned to winning the battle for the peace. And in that struggle we must be clear that the people who blow up commuter trains are very definitely on the wrong side.'

Alas, too many people are not only not clear about that, but even worse don't understand that they are not. On the evidence of this article, Andrew Anthony can actually think straight. The chances of his convincing his comrades, therefore, are nil.