The Wrong Idea

A Brit politician has come up with a horrible idea:

LONDON (AP) - A leading British politician called for Iran to be expelled from soccer's World Cup for resuming its nuclear program.

Conservative lawmaker Michael Ancram said Friday such a move "would give a very, very clear signal to Iran that the international community will not accept what they are doing."

"It may be unpleasant, but you can give a very hard signal which isn't going to hurt people as such but is going to at least give a chance of registering in the minds of the Iranian people that what their president is doing is unacceptable to the international community," Ancram, a former Tory foreign affairs spokesman, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Iran is one 32 teams that will play in the monthlong soccer showcase that begins in Germany on June 9.

That's the exact wrong course of action. These players have trained hard to get to an event only 31 other teams will be playing in. Just as Jimmy Carter made the misguided decision to boycott the '80 Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I feel that to penalize the athletes because of the actions of their governments is wrong.

The west needs to appeal to the common Iranians or "the street", how will they react when they are banned from playing on the world stage.

I'm as big a critic of Iran as there is, but this will do much more harm then good in the long run.