Starmer's dilemma over UK's role in Iran war

It is not easy being UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer these days. For that matter, it is not easy being any leader whose country is traditionally allied with the US.

Should Britain join the US and Israel in their strikes against Iran or should London sit this war out and preserve a defensive posture, maybe later carving out a role in trying to mediate an end to the conflict?

The Iran war and all its ramifications are testing the special relationship between the UK and the US. President Donald Trump was furious, it has been reported, when the British prime minister felt compelled to teeter and delay giving approval for US planes to use UK bases for their Iran sorties, as is the norm. It seems that Starmer hesitated and did not automatically rally behind his American allies.

For a few days, the US air force was locked out of the UK’s strategic Indian Ocean airbase of Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in England. Starmer later changed his mind and gave his authorization after British interests and bases were not spared reprisal attacks from Iranian drones and missiles. His approval hinged on a legal argument that the Iranians were endangering British lives in the Middle East and therefore the bases could be used for specific and limited defensive purposes. This permits not only the Americans but also the UK, if needed, to launch attacks against Iranian targets.

London is still paying lip service to the norms of international law, the rules-based order, diplomacy and multilateralism

Mohamed Chebaro

Away from the tit-for-tat of Trump calling Starmer “no Winston Churchill” and the UK press responding that Trump is “no Roosevelt,” the future of the not-so-special relationship looks to be at stake. However, it is not only the US’ ties with Britain that are under threat, but most of its European allies too. Just over a year into the second Trump presidency and political and diplomatic relations all over the world seem to have shifted from the usual status quo. As far as the US and UK are concerned, it seems that the two sides are singing from a different hymn sheet.

The prime minister’s lawyerly perspective seems passe in the “Make America Great Again” world of might makes right. London — like its European allies’ posture regarding the conflict with Iran and before that Gaza and Ukraine — is still paying lip service to the norms of international law, the rules-based world order, diplomacy and multilateralism. For Trump’s White House, foreign policy and the business of the day could not be more different.

Trump’s approach centers on breaking the status quo first, disregarding the rule of law altogether and working to build a new, more convenient set of rules. He is making sure to rally like-minded leaders to approve of this, demonstrating an inclination to the use of force and looking with disdain at those who question it.

Many have blamed the UK government’s hesitance on the US’ use of its airbases on weakness and divisions within Starmer’s Labour government. It was easy for the opposition parties to jump on the bandwagon of criticizing the indecision of Starmer. Even former Labour PM Tony Blair added his weight to the debate, claiming that Britain ought to have rubber-stamped the US action against Iran and taken part in the attacks.

Ironically, this coincided with the airing of a three-part documentary by Channel 4, titled “The Tony Blair Story.” This looked back on and analyzed Blair’s instinctive approach of rallying behind America in its war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003, despite popular opposition and a significant Labour rebellion in Parliament.

Blair, like most prime ministers before and after him, naturally sought to uphold the special relationship, even if it tarnished his legacy and standing. As a result, he was called all kinds of names, from “Bliar” to the “poodle” of the US. But make no mistake, in previous conflicts, from the Balkans to Afghanistan and Iraq, and later Syria and Libya, the British posture and synchronization with the US encouraged or discouraged and sometimes aided or influenced America’s actions.

America is reading from a new rulebook, one that is unilateral, even imperial, in its application of might makes right

Mohamed Chebaro

The threat to carry out punitive military action against the Assad regime for the use of chemical weapons against its own people in 2013, followed by the retreat of the UK and the US, shows that the relationship is often symbiotic. When then-PM David Cameron deferred the matter to Parliament, President Barack Obama did the same with Congress and ultimately refrained from taking any action, breaking America’s own red line against the Syrian regime, much to the dismay of many allies of London and Washington.

All this is to say that although the special relationship has mattered over time, I am not sure if it still matters. A YouGov poll this week found that 59 percent of Britons opposed the war in Iran, with only 25 percent supporting it.

Not that Trump’s irritation with Britain is of concern to UK voters, nor is the use of British bases essential to the US-Israeli operations in Iran. Starmer, though, has slowly effected a corrective move after Iran’s attacks on the UK base in Cyprus and the legal argument that Iranian drones and missiles are also threatening British civilians in the Gulf countries.

This has led to London and many European nations shifting gear and raising their military preparedness in the region, sending navy ships with air defenses and squadrons of fighter jets to join the effort to provide a defensive shield. This also allows them to maybe act offensively later, as Iran is sowing chaos and widening the conflict, harming UK and European allies and interests and threatening the smooth flow of oil through the region’s strategic straits.

Trump is unlikely to show gratitude for such a U-turn, but what this episode of transatlantic friction shows is historic. It points to a divided Western world. It is a world in which America is reading from a new rulebook, one that is unilateral, even imperial, in its application of might makes right and the pursuit of its own interests and what it alone believes is right.

Meanwhile, there is another world — maybe an older, withering one — that still tries to uphold international law and a rules-based order, working through diplomacy and institutions to preserve peace and stability. Maybe this is the world of Starmer, but it is clearly not the world of Trump.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy.