It takes quite a lot to make people like me swing behind Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, given his record, but President Trump may have managed it. By publicly rebuking the PM – “this is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with” – and declaring that he is “not happy” with the UK, he gives rise to the subversive thought that on this, Sir Keir may not be all wrong. The gibe about Winston Churchill, in fact, invites the obvious riposte: “and you, Mr Trump, are no Franklin D Roosevelt”.
The reason for siding with Sir Keir on this one should be plain. If the strikes against Iran had been specifically directed to supporting the democratic opponents of the regime – if only they had taken place in January, when thousands of young people were being shot for taking part in demonstrations, including in ambulances, by the Revolutionary Guard – there would be a powerful case for supporting them. In fact, I’d have been cheering the strikes on. The bloody suppression of January’s uprising – remember the pictures of all those brave young people? - is conclusive proof that the late Ayatollah’s regime is ripe for toppling. And who knows? It may be that the removal of the current leadership may be the opportunity the rebels have been waiting for. If the democratic opposition does seize the moment, then this war may yet be justified by results.
But by such means? The attack on Iran appears to have been led by Israel, with the US playing catchup. The Secretary of State, Marko Rubio, let slip that the US only launched strikes after learning that Israel was going to do so. He has since qualified his observations after being brought into line but that first giveaway seems truthful. It would seem Israel has led rather than followed the US in the extraordinarily effective strikes that have characterised the war, including the removal of the Ayatollah Khamenei, and the head of the Iranian armed forces. So we are being invited to follow the US into a conflict into which it seems to have been initially led by Israel. It would, at least, require some deliberation.
Pete Hegseth, the US secretary for war, this week appeared to refer to the UK when he attacked "so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force". Who can he possibly mean? Yep, I think it’s clear. But you know, hemming and hawing – i.e. deliberating – seems a rational posture when it comes to military engagements on this scale. The example of Iraq is not encouraging. Britain and other Nato allies were drawn into the war on the false premise that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It would be impolite to say that America’s allies were lied to, but certainly the war aims shifted quite dramatically over the course of the conflict. For there were no such weapons. But at least the war was prefaced by debate in the UN; Britain erred in entering the war but there was a lengthy debate beforehand in the House of Commons.
Now President Trump appears to think that the PM should have entered the fray and opened up British bases for use by American forces on his say-so. You know, I’m not at all sure that a rather more forceful PM than Sir Keir, namely Margaret Thatcher, would have jumped when a US president told her to.
For one thing it’s handy when going to war to know what your aims are. And the aims of the White House don’t seem clear, as most commentators have already pointed out. Is it, as JD Vance said, so that Iran should never be in a position to make or use nuclear weapons? That could have been achieved by negotiation. Is it regime change? Was it, as President Trump suggested, because Iran was planning to attack US bases in the region? Or was it, as Marko Rubio, Secretary of State, suggested, because Israel was going to attack anyway, and that would have had repercussions for the US?
Whatever. If Britain were unilaterally to side with the US, it should have been after consultation and negotiation, or at least advance warning. The same goes for its other allies – and I don’t think even President Trump imagines that Nato could have been persuaded to take part. Granted, the effectiveness of the strikes owed everything to surprise, but you can’t launch a war without warning and then expect allies simply to fall into line. That’s not how alliances work. Many Europeans, including many British MPs, will find themselves instinctively rebelling against this American imperial approach, as the Spanish PM, Pedro Sanchez, has done.
Having said all that, Sir Keir has come badly out of all this, for the simple reason that Britain’s unpreparedness for war has been hideously exposed. The buildup to the conflict was obvious for weeks, yet it is only now that HMS Dragon has been ordered to the region and alas, it won’t arrive for about eight days. Scary, huh? Robert Fox, this paper’s defence correspondent, writes about this in devastating detail but suffice it to say that Sir Keir has neglected the country’s defence capabilities, and we are paying the price now. There are no Royal Navy ships in the Middle East for the first time in half a century. It’s for this reason the PM should be called an embarrassment.
And yet, and yet, it may be that the regime change that follows will be to the good, that the democrats in Iran will seize this moment, and that the bloody old order will be replaced by a stable and democratic government. Let’s see. And let’s pray it does.
