The war on Iran has generated images that will be hard for many to forget. When a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena, the released video showed the ship bending into the air like a plastic toy before disintegrating. Only 32 of those on board survived.
That ship was part of an Iranian regime that killed thousands of protesters in recent months. It was a legal target in wartime, but it was also sailing unarmed having just taken part in a joint exercise hosted by the Indian navy, alongside ships and aircraft from the US itself.
By sinking the warship far from Iranian waters, the US sent a signal that the war is global in scope – with no surrenders, no prisoners and no warning. And by releasing the footage and speaking excitedly about America’s war prowess, Trump has turned it into his latest version of a reality television spectacle.
Those urging the UK to send warships and aircraft to join Trump’s war full throttle now have a visual image of what could happen if things go wrong – because our enemies have submarines, too.
By sinking the IRIS Dena, the US has sent a signal to every other navy, and to the world’s major shipping corporations: you are operating in a global warzone.
Keir Starmer was right to avoid rushing into a war without a clearly stated aim, and with no legal basis. He is right to ask, at every stage: how do we de-escalate.
Despite Britain’s cautious stance, the war with Iran has the potential to grow and entangle us. Iran’s proxy Hezbollah has already hit a British base in Cyprus. If the regime survives, when its ballistic missiles run out it will target both its neighbours and Western adversaries with terror attacks.
Wars expand. In Ukraine, we are four years into the first big war in Europe since 1945. This week, almost unnoticed amid the Iran panic, that conflict likely spread to the Mediterranean, where drones sank a Russian gas tanker.
The War Department will not stop until Iran’s Navy is completely and utterly destroyed. pic.twitter.com/9uGsXEXbZZ
— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellASW) March 4, 2026Last May, India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, fought a four-day war and are now arming to the teeth for a potential re-run. China conducted massive military exercises in December, a potential rehearsal for an invasion of Taiwan.
War is a vortex, and when you are facing an enemy as irrational as the leaders who run Iran, you must be prepared to be sucked into it, even if against your will.
In some ways what is at stake in this latest Gulf war is not just whether the Iranian regime survives, but whether the alliance of autocratic states it is part of can endure. The CRINK – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – was always more of an acronym than a reality, but Russia has armed Iran to the teeth and China buys 80 per cent of Iran’s oil at knockdown prices and shipped vital missile parts to Tehran in the run-up to the conflict.
While it is unlikely China or Russia will come to Iran’s aid militarily, both have every interest in the survival of the regime. It is the centre of gravity of the whole anti-Western informal alliance.
If Iran was to become democratic and pro-Western, as many among its young and educated population want, that would arguably be the biggest turn in world events this century. However, if it was to fail as a state, breaking into regional fiefdoms with its Kurdish, Turkic and Balochi minorities going it alone, it could pull every country in the region into a land war.
That is why Trump’s attack was so reckless.
The most fundamental fact we must face now is that the US has become a gestural superpower. Trump does not seek to order the world but to profit from its disorder, and to entertain his global audience with his chest-thumping and videos of the results.
JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. pic.twitter.com/0502N6a3rL
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026At the same time, Trump has basically walked away from arming Kyiv, demanding the Europeans do it instead. The India-Pakistan conflict erupted, essentially, because the US gave no signals to the belligerents that it cared.
Faced with the emergence of a petulant, isolationist Washington, Europe’s leaders – Starmer included – have been too slow to understand the challenge.
It is in Labour’s bloodstream to keep the US invested in Europe’s defence – that’s what its foreign secretary Ernest Bevin did by proposing the establishment of Nato after the Second World War – but in a world of great power competition, Europe must become a great power in its own right. Europe either becomes a chess player or the board.
We are in a civilisational conflict – where our rivals are trying to undermine and belittle the values European societies are built on. This, unfortunately, often includes Trump.
Our country’s national security does not depend on the size of the Royal Navy – or even the possession of a nuclear weapon – it depends on the resilience of the alliances we are part of, and on a rules-based global system that is under increasing threat.
Trump’s vision is of a Europe that funds the US’s spiralling debts, but without the right to run a trade surplus in return. A Europe that jumps to his tune in a war with no clear objective, for which the case has not been made, and still pays a 15 per cent tariff on every item exported to his country.
Meanwhile, between now and the end of the year, the rising price of oil and gas could plunge the world economy into a sharp recession.
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If we get pulled into the conflict with Iran, due to its reckless pattern of retaliation, we must work with our European partners to answer a question Trump hasn’t bothered to ask: what does the world look like when we win?
Trump has suggested he should play a role in choosing who becomes the next leader of Iran. It could be another grand TV moment for him, like his Board of Peace for Gaza, which is all talk and no substance.
But what actually comes next in the Middle East is the type of complex and challenging topic that clashes badly with Trump’s immediate, made-for-TV approach.
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