I AM encouraged to read that L Spiteri is a fan of my views on Europe and Iraq - but just a little suspicious.

Of course, he's right about Iraq being a nation since the 1920s when we British created it from three irreconcilable cultural tribal and religious groups - something we did all over the Empire on the principle of divide and rule - and with our strategic and economic interests uppermost in our minds.

Iraq has never been a nation formed with the popular consent of its people. I imagine Saddam Hussein is grinning away in his cell as we Western amnesiacs are forced to relearn the lessons of the 1920s - that the only way to lead Iraq is by force or it will fragment into three parts.

As for us creating a secular Western-style democracy with political parties based on differing political theories, the very ambition discloses our total ignorance of life in the Middle East.

Let's bring those troops home and get them to restore order in Wild West Britain and America and get the Arab league to divide Iraq in a fair and sensitive way.

JIM EVANS,

Worcester.