THE mad megalomaniac Emperor Nero is notorious for having fiddled while Rome burned. I thought of him last Saturday.

I mean, the world is engrossed in the most serious international crisis for 45 years - when the Russians and Americans were threatening to start World War III over the emplacement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. What is the response of our television stations and national newspapers to this apocalyptic scenario? It is to ignore it and instead fill hours and pages with the tale of a whale. Nero-like... media goes fishing while the world threatens to burn.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran is widely suspected of producing nuclear weapons under the guise of an atomic energy project. The United Nations has warned him about this and is threatening economic sanctions. The Iranian authorities are taking the UN threats seriously and withdrawing financial assets from the European money markets. Should we be worried?

Well, Ahmadinejad said three weeks ago that Israel "has no right to exist and should be wiped off the face of the earth". When he gets his nukes he will have no difficulty effecting this annihilation. Ahmadinejad is a religious partisan who has also declared in public that his most devout wish is to reveal the Hidden Imam. This Hidden Imam is a figure who features in Islamic prophecy as a great leader who will appear at the last battle which will see the end of the world and the posthumous triumph of Islam over the infidels - that is, as the Americans would say, you and me guys.

We are not dealing here with figures of speech, coded messages, pictorial exaggerations of mundane political realities. Ahmadinejad is not a politician in any recognisable sense. He is a sincere fanatic. He is not bluffing. He means what he says. He sees himself as the deliverer of Muslims from their enemies. He sees us as the enemies - Europe, America the Great Satan. So is Iran really manufacturing nukes or, as its leaders say, only pursuing the peaceful project of developing nuclear power for the country's energy requirements? We might ask why one of the biggest oil producing nations needs nuclear power in the first place.

I have been talking about these matters with some political strategists and experts on international affairs here in London. What they are all saying - I stress "all" are saying - is hardly surprising, though utterly terrifying. It is that no country faced with the imminent threat of nuclear attack can afford to sit back and do nothing. Rational defence must mean a pre-emptive strike. So what are the responses so far of Israel and other western nations?

Last Sunday Israel said it would work towards a diplomatic solution of the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions, but would reserve the right to use military means if and when necessary in its defence. Jacques Chirac for France said bluntly last week that he would not hesitate to use his country's nuclear weapons against terrorist states. The Americans are saying that all options are open including the military option.

Meanwhile, Iran has removed the seals from its nuclear apparatus and there is more than a whiff of Armageddon in the air. Jack Straw for Britain says that a military response from us is "inconceivable". And Fleet Street and all the telly channels go whaling in the Thames. By the side of this insane neglect, Nero's fiddling before the fire begins to look like a harmless jest.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.