The US-Israeli attack on the dictatorship in Iran comes as no surprise to anybody. For weeks now, American naval and air assets have been repositioning to the Gulf. And yet, for some unknown reason, Britain appears to have been completely unprepared for Saturday’s strike.
No right-thinking person can lament the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his IRGC thugs, who have been a known and active threat to the Middle East and the wider world for almost 50 years. Wherever their influence extended, they marked it with blood and suffering. Good riddance to them.
That said, Sir Keir Starmer may have had understandable reasons for declining the Americans’ request that the British military join in the campaign to topple the theocracy. The White House is not notorious for its consideration of detail, dedication to careful planning and lasting attention span. Memories of Iraq – cited by the Prime Minister over the weekend – loom large when British politicians consider proposals for regime change in the Middle East.
Less defensible was the decision to refuse the right of American planes to use British bases in their action entirely. Particularly when Downing Street is also trying to persuade Trump that the costly Chagos giveaway does not amount to undermining our mutual defence interests. It would have been possible to apply conditions – for example, limiting the function of British bases to knocking down Iranian missiles, as has been done previously, or to striking Iran’s offensive capabilities rather than striking the ayatollah’s compound in Tehran.
That blanket refusal was an error – some in Westminster are wondering whether it might have been spurred by Labour’s shock at losing the Gorton and Denton by-election to a Green party which has effectively become the torch-bearer of Corbynism.
The Government may have hoped that Iran would reciprocate the decision to stay out of it by sparing British targets in its response. If so, that was naive. British civilians in Gulf states, British troops in Bahrain, and British bases in Cyprus have since come under attack from Iranian drones and missiles.
In his response to that knee-jerk backlash, Starmer seems surprised that “Iran has launched sustained attacks… at countries who did not attack them”.
What’s new? This is the regime’s modus operandi – from its mass murder of Syrians, to its imperialist dominance of Lebanon via Hezbollah, to the 20 terrorist plots it has sponsored in Britain since 2022, to aiding Russia to bombard Ukrainian civilians night after night, it always seeks to kill and terrorise as its favoured form of influence.
The general air of bafflement in the aftermath of the weekend’s strike suggest an unjustifiable lack of preparedness, both military and political.
Every man and his dog knew that this strike was coming. The geopolitics are clear, Trump publicly told Iranian protesters in January that “help is on its way”, and the British government had inside advance warning, having been asked privately to take part, and failing that to allow the use of our bases in its execution.
Instead we were caught napping, scrambling to respond. Shockingly, there are no Royal Navy warships currently in the Gulf or the Mediterranean, massively limiting Britain’s options and capacity to act in an increasingly dangerous and unstable situation. Despite the advance warning, we have chosen to act like any other unknowing, surprised spectator.
That status persisted well after the strikes began. John Healey, the Defence Secretary who is a reliable media performer for the Government and a voice of robust moral clarity on Ukraine, was left flapping in the wind by his leader’s indecision on Sunday. Appearing on the BBC, he was painfully unable to say whether the British government supported or opposed the operation – not through any fault of his own, but apparently because Downing Street doesn’t know or it isn’t willing to say.
Canada, Australia and others are clear on the topic, so why not Britain?
Even now, after Iranian missiles have been fired at British bases in Cyprus, Starmer is only slowly starting to take semi-coherent baby steps towards a clear position. On Monday, he said that “the only way to stop the threat [from Iran] is to destroy the missiles at source – in their storage depots – or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles”.
That’s a clear and correct analysis, yet his action on that threat is to now, belatedly, allow the Americans to use our bases to launch strikes to neutralise it.
This isn’t sufficient.
Government’s primary duty is to keep us and our forces secure. We have the capability to help to destroy the missiles, the depots and the launchers which the Prime Minister himself says are a danger to that security.
If the Government is worried about regime change, or domestic political perception, or the risk of wholeheartedly joining a Trump venture with unclear goals, we can still target and limit our terms of engagement. RAF strikes could be authorised against clearly defined targets, without joining in wider attacks on the regime, or its infrastructure, if we so wish.
Indeed, that is the very condition which Britain has now imposed on the use of its bases by American warplanes – so why are our own forces standing back and letting others bear the load?
Being politically and militarily unprepared for this conflict, despite advance warning, was bad enough. Being so slow and muddled in their response even once it had begun simply compounded that error.
The very least the Government can now do is to take direct action to eliminate a known and active threat to our forces and our interests. Passively taking the back seat is to take no decision at all.
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