Even the US President, whose decision making is volatile, must have known when he dialled down expectations of immediate action in comments going into the weekend that this was a smokescreen. He has now forged ahead with a plan to give Israel full support, using the US’s powerful “bunker buster” bombs to penetrate three of the main sites deemed to be hubs of Tehran’s weapons-grade uranium enrichment programme.
As well as hitting targets which were specifically located in places the theocratic regime and its nuclear advisors deemed too hard to reach, the message will be getting through to scientists, fellow-travellers and the families of the Iranian elite that they are in danger, so long as their boss class remains wedded to nuclear ambitions.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to the media at Chequers, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, to address the US’s bombing of nuclear sites in Iran (Photo: PA)This is certainly true of Germany, whose new Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed Israel doing the “dirty work” of dealing with a power which is not only on a path to illicit nuclear status but a major financial and arms backer of terrorism via its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas across the Middle East, as well as waging an aggressive campaign of cyber-war and intimidation of dissidents abroad, with special attention to the UK.
There was more gratitude than outrage when Israel did something similar to prevent Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s nuclear push in 2007 and in Iraq in 1981 – the more pragmatic Arab governments also quietly accepted that this was a benefit and that the tinder box of the Middle East could not afford a massive power like Iran acquiring rogue status with nukes.
Although Starmer is said to be most concerned about whether the attacks are legal in international law (which is far from as clear cut a category as many who wield this argument presume), the UK’s military and intelligence communities are also more in a mode to tacitly tolerate the Israeli-US action than show vast enthusiasm about joining in.
For now, the US has operated without forcing the PM to declare whether he would or would not approve the use of Diego Garcia military base in the Chagos Islands, under UK operational control, for re-fuelling and logistics.
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Even indirect involvement would be a dramatic moment which will divide opinion at home, forcing a Labour government with a PM who opposed the Iraq invasion to declare that he is more hawkish than his legalistic tendency to whataboutery has hitherto suggested. And of course, it comes with amped up risk to British assets and security jeopardy at home, too.
Energy shocks cannot entirely be absorbed, unless the Government is prepared to relax its spending and Ed Miliband may well have to accept a retreat from his original green “win” on forbidding future oil and gas projects in the North Sea to secure more production at home – which will test the patience of more green-inclined Labour supporters.
Fence-sitting may well be the best posture for the prime ministerial behind for now. Pretty soon, he is going to have to descend on one side or the other as a first strike on an outlaw regime opens into a conflict which is easier to begin than conclude.
Anne McElvoy is co-host of Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast
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