Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

A war with Iran would cause nothing but further suffering, and could trigger horrendous wider consequences.
Governments must work to break the cycle of violence, not accelerate it.

The attack on the two ships was a criminal act, and the response should be a criminal investigation and prosecution. Yes, progress will be slow and difficult. But that's massively better than a military response, which would "punish" many people who had nothing to do with it.

And we must not allow the US and UK governments to be judge, jury and executioner, in deciding who did it and what the response should be. We've been there before (Iraq). The investigation should be independent and without assumptions.

At present, even the means by which the ships were holed is disputed. The crew and shipping company say they were attacked by "flying objects". The US government says it was either mines or torpedoes. To express certainty about the perpetrators under these circumstances is unwise

In national law, people cannot be convicted of even the pettiest crimes unless they are guilty "beyond reasonable doubt".
But powerful people are talking of "punishing" Iran militarily (probably causing the deaths of many innocents) on the basis of nothing but "strong suspicion"