As Trump’s armada descends on Iran, Starmer should keep the UK clear

Editorial: If the prime minister has denied the US the use of British airbases, he is to be commended for standing up to Donald Trump in the interests of international law

Not for the first time, and planned or not, Donald Trump has his enemies guessing. Around six weeks ago, during the widespread protests in Iran, he warned the country’s leadership that the US was “locked and loaded” – ready to act if the violent crackdown on the demonstrations continued. His words may have restrained the regime from carrying out mass executions of political prisoners, but they had no more effect than that, and nothing happened. The promised “help” for the people of Iran never materialised.

So Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains the supreme leader; the Revolutionary Guards are still loyal, as far as can be judged; and the secret police are as insidious and brutal as ever. This week, two British tourists detained by the regime in January have been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

More recently, the US president has acted in a more emollient way, sending a team to negotiate in Geneva with those same ayatollahs for, as ever, a deal. This would supposedly entail the Islamic Republic finally abandoning its nuclear ambitions and accepting limits on its ballistic missile systems, presumably to protect Israel.

Yet President Trump’s bellicose threats – backed up by enormous naval and air power – continue to escalate in parallel with the diplomacy. Mr Trump has given a deadline of 10 to 15 days to Iran to make a deal over its nuclear programme or, he warned, “really bad things” will happen.

Donald Trump’s bellicose threats – backed up by enormous naval and air power – continue to escalate in parallel with the diplomacy (Reuters)

Two aircraft carrier groups, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald R Ford, the biggest carrier in the world, plus other destroyers and forces based in the region, surround Iran. To adapt Teddy Roosevelt’s famous dictum, American foreign policy today comprises shouting while holding a very large stick indeed.

The fear must be that the mobilisation of forces is now so great, and has created a momentum so strong, that the temptation to use them will prove irresistible. Mr Trump won’t want to lose face, and the success in Venezuela and of Operation Midnight Hammer on Iran’s nuclear facilities last June will only add to the attraction of performing a clean hit on selected targets. It would also go down well with his Maga voter base in advance of the midterm elections later this year.

Will he act? Ultimatums are standard Trump practice across the piece, freely dished out to Congress, domestic opponents, trade partners and foreign powers, friendly or otherwise. Oftentimes, they expire quietly. It does not mean that the US will go to war with Iran, and the truth is that it probably doesn’t need to.

One usually friendly ally, Britain, has reportedly tried to exert some leverage to encourage the White House not to launch strikes against Iran. It is said that the prime minister has so far declined to grant the US permission to use its bases on British soil to carry out such missions. These include the major US airfield at Fairford in Gloucestershire, and, still more controversially, the base on Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory, commonly known as the Chagos Islands.

If true, then Sir Keir Starmer is to be commended for standing up to Mr Trump in the interests of peace in the region, as well as upholding the unfashionable principles of international law. The UK is an old and loyal friend of the US, and must continue to be so – but as such, it has a duty to warn its ally about the consequences of such drastic action, which would include triggering renewed regional conflict if, say, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and various Iran-sponsored terrorists were drawn into the equation, not to mention the reaction of interested superpowers allied with Iran – Russia and China.

In resisting US pressure to connive in a war on Iran, Sir Keir echoes an earlier example of British independence under one of his predecessors – when Harold Wilson resisted sending even a token force to take part in the war in Vietnam. That policy was soon vindicated, and also stands in stark contrast to the disastrous results of Tony Blair’s support for the war in Iraq.

Aside from warnings from allies about the obvious danger to what passes for peace in the Middle East, including his own peace plan in Gaza, President Trump’s policy is simply illogical and unnecessary. By his own witness, Operation Midnight Hammer “obliterated” Iran’s chances of developing a nuclear warhead, and if that ever became a possibility again in the future, another such operation could be launched.

A US-Iran deal is therefore unnecessary, just as Mr Trump said when he withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the old international agreement on limiting Iran’s nuclear capability. Nor would any conceivable aerial assaults on Iran bring to an end the rule of the ayatollahs and return the country to the firm friendship it enjoyed with Washington before the fall of the Shah in 1979. Perversely, any murderous bombings of civilians in Iran might consolidate the regime as it defended the country against “the Great Satan”.

A bombed-out, more reckless Iran, more united against foreign aggression and with nothing to lose, is the last thing that the Middle East or the wider world needs. “Bad things” would certainly flow from a US attack – but bad things for the US and its allies, too.