Prime Minister Keir Starmer has undermined the special relationship by his dithering and inadequate support for the United States in its conflict with Iran. The United Kingdom refused U.S. requests to use British air bases for strikes on Iran in the buildup to this conflict. Things have only gotten worse since the conflict began.
Starmer’s government says it is simply ensuring its conformity with international law. Being that Iran has engaged in systematic terrorist and other hostile activity against the U.S. and its allies, that legal concern takes on an absurdly overwrought dominance in Starmer’s mind.
True, there’s no question that this war carries a deep risk and uncertainty in terms of its eventual outcome. It also carries significant costs to the U.S.’s short-to-medium term readiness for a much greater national security priority: being able to defeat China in any war over Taiwan. Still, a fundamental principle of any close alliance is that once a country engages in combat, its ally stands behind it. Even if that ally has major doubts as to what its partner is doing.
Consider President Ronald Reagan’s response to the Falkland Islands crisis. On April 2, 1980, Argentina launched a surprise invasion of the British Falkland Islands territory in the South Atlantic. Reagan pushed hard for a diplomatic resolution. But when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered military action to recover the islands, Reagan ordered arms supplies and intelligence support to the British war effort. The U.S. also provided other still-classified but important support to the U.K.’s war effort. Reagan kept pushing for a quick ceasefire in private. But once British troops entered combat, he made clear his public support for America’s closest ally. Similarly, a few years later, Thatcher didn’t hesitate in allowing Reagan to use British bases to strike Libya in retaliation for terrorist attacks.
Starmer has offered a different example of leadership.
It took the prime minister until Sunday evening, and only after an attempted Iranian drone attack on a British military base on Cyprus, to nervously announce that the U.K. will now allow U.S. forces to operate out of British bases. Even then, Starmer took pains to note that this authorization will apply only to strikes on Iranian missile forces. Unlike other allied leaders from Australia to Germany, Starmer has also equivocated in his rhetorical support for the U.S. The special relationship notwithstanding, this should have been a no-brainer for Starmer, given that Iran has engaged in a number of recent successful and attempted terrorist attacks on British soil.
KHAMENEI IS DEAD. WE’RE ABOUT TO LEARN HOW MANY TERRORISTS CROSSED THE US BORDER
True, President Donald Trump is no saint of allied virtue. His recent foolish disregard for British military sacrifices in Afghanistan caused great understandable upset in the U.K. As with his immoral threats to Greenland, Trump’s foolish hyperbole too often fosters an unnecessary anti-Americanism that complicates the ability of allied leaders to support the U.S.
Ultimately, however, rhetorical folly toward an ally is one thing. Foolish action is another.
The basic, sad truth: as U.S. forces are in harm’s way and taking casualties against an enemy, America’s closest ally is dithering on the sidelines. It’s not just the Trump administration that’s upset. From the perspective of nonpartisan national security professionals in the Pentagon and intelligence community, the U.K. suddenly seems a lot less reliable.