Does Clegg go for a Love Actually moment?

The foreign policy portion of tonight’s debate offers Nick Clegg several opportunities to bracket Labour and the Tories together. Both of them supported the war in Iraq, both won’t take the military option off the table when it comes to Iran and both believe in the centrality of the alliance with the US to UK foreign policy.  

On this final point, it’ll be fascinating to see if Clegg launches a full-on assault on the view that the America alliance is the cornerstone of UK foreign policy.  He sketched out the arguments against thinking about the special relationship in a speech the other day and there’s no doubt he could score some populist points by accusing the other two parties of being overly deferential to Washington.

I happen to think that Labour and the Tories are right on all these issues. For example, if you rule out using military force against Iran, you make it far more likely Iran will go nuclear as there’s no reason for it not to.