Sir Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, is a distinguished lawyer and, by all accounts, a man of temperate demeanour. Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is neither of these things.
The fiery Iranian has warned the UK that Iran regards its decision to let the US use British military facilities in the region as “participation in aggression”. Clearly, careful legal advice given to Sir Keir by the attorney general, Richard Hermer, to the effect that the UK is now entitled to allow the Americans to use its bases for “defensive” actions, is of no matter to Mr Araghchi.
That viewpoint, to be fair, is understandable, given that this senior member of the regime’s leadership could quite conceivably find himself martyred by a “defensive” bomb dropped by his country’s enemies. So much, then, for Sir Keir’s efforts to keep Britain out of the war.
Does this make a mockery of the prime minister’s cautious approach to supporting Donald Trump? Not really. Iran’s objective is to make the global energy crisis worse, and thus put pressure on the Americans and the Israelis to stop their actions and sue for peace on terms acceptable to Tehran. Iran’s leadership has worked out that the best way to influence President Trump is via the Dow Jones industrial average, and similar economic forces. The same is true in respect of US public opinion.
The mullahs of Iran, rather like the North Vietnamese communists and the Taliban before them, know that they cannot beat a superpower in conventional warfare. But they can with guerrilla techniques, knowing they do not have to take much account of the democratic mood in their own country. Iran is successfully leveraging widespread hostility to the war among citizens of the West, and there’s little Mr Trump can do to counter that.
Hunkering down as best they can, Mr Araghchi, Ayatollah Khamenei Jr and their colleagues must also be delighted that the “Great Satan” and “Little Satan”, as they style the US and the UK, have fallen out so badly with each other. Vladimir Putin, too, can extract huge satisfaction from another fracturing in the Western alliance caused by President Trump’s preternatural lack of statesmanship.
Not content with humiliating the newly elected prime minister of Japan with a wisecrack about Pearl Harbor during a press conference in the Oval Office, Mr Trump has now doubled down on his curious approach to diplomacy with another social-media rant. Apparently, Nato partners are being “cowards”. The president may, unfortunately, be right in asserting that without the US, “NATO IS A PAPER TIGER!”, but he should also have realised that America isn’t as powerful as it might be without its loyal allies – hence his public appeals for naval assistance to keep the vital Strait of Hormuz open.
The truth is that the individual nations still allied to his country – some within Nato, others not – could be persuaded to join an international effort to free up this seaway and end the energy crisis, provided that it was done via an agreed, feasible, multilateral plan, and with every partner having an appropriate say in the decision-making, even if the operation were US-led.
A little influence, not to mention a rough idea of the aims and terms of engagement of such a hazardous mission, is not too much to ask – and requiring these things certainly does not amount to cowardice. Coming from a man who did not join so many other young Americans in the 1960s in fighting for their country in Vietnam, the aspersions cast by Mr Trump are doubly objectionable.
After a month of this war of choice – a war in which President Trump was persuaded by Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon talks with Iran in favour of unlimited bombing – there is little sign of an end to the crisis. A navy has been sunk, and a supreme leader assassinated, but there has been no regime change, and the Islamic Republic has survived, which amounts to victory in these circumstances.
What’s more, Iran – through “asymmetrical” tactics and a strategic aim of holding the global economy hostage – has gained the initiative. Even if the US and Israel called the war off now, the Iranians could still project their power by continuing to block the Strait of Hormuz, threatening a global recession.
The net result of the Iran war thus far is that the US is weaker, and the West more divided than a month or so ago, while a wedge of sorts is even being driven between the US and Israel. The richest, most democratic and most formidable military-industrial alliance in history – comprising the Western nations under American leadership – has somehow managed to be outsmarted and humiliated by Iran and Russia, a couple of backward, corrupt, near-bankrupt gangster powers.
The “magic” ingredient is, of course, Donald J Trump: the worst president in modern history.
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