The National Interest?

“I have been attacked by some for my decision not to join the offensive against Iran. But at every stage, I have stood by my principles – Principles which I held just as strongly when it came to the debate on the Iraq war in 2003. Principles which I believe are shared by the British people – That our decisions should be based on a calm, level-headed assessment of the British national interest… And that if we are to send our servicemen and women into harm’s way – The very least they deserve is to know that they do so on a legal basis… And with a proper, thought through plan”.

Sir Keir Starmer, March 16th, 2026

March 17^th. Sir Keir Starmer is right. There is nothing wrong with restraint in international affairs.  He is also right that the primary mission of the British or any other government is to serve the national interest.  He is again right that Trump has no thought through plan as friends of mine close to the White House have confirmed. Given the circumstances, what is the British national interest? 

Starmer is also right to resist Donald Trump’s efforts to bully Britain and other Europeans into joining the US-Israeli coalition against Iran.  Trump is utterly wrong to link US membership of or US support for NATO to the support of Europeans for his current war on Iran.  The US leadership of the Alliance is an essential, probably vital US interest.  If the Americans abandoned NATO it would be an act of immense self-harm.  Still, in their current hyper-nationalist mood driven by The American Idiots Guide to Made Up History in which the Americans won everything and saved everyone and gained nothing for it, they may just fall into that trap.  When Europeans also fell into the trap of supporting American military adventures out of fear they would lose NATO, poor American leadership led to fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq and the subjugation of the national interest of Europeans to mercurial US domestic politics.

If Starmer (and Merz and others) is right to suggest that offensive British military action against Iran is not in the British national interest, confronting the aggressions of the appalling regime in Tehran clearly is.  What is the plan? Thus far, British policy towards Iran, such as it exists, has been covenants without the sword of no use to any man or woman.  It is a clear and present danger to Europeans to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA which was meant to prevent Iran enriching weapons grade uranium was in fact a not very joint, not at all comprehensive, no plan of inaction.

Furthermore, whilst it may not be an obligation for Britain to join the Trump-Netanyahu war on Iran, it is a vital British and wider European interest to get oil flowing again through the Straits of Hormuz. And yet, the most Starmer is offering (possibly) are a few anti-mine drones that will do nothing to counter the 2500 unmanned attack boats the Iranians possess and which threaten any ship in transit.  Air, surface and subsurface defence is needed along with protected convoys through the Straits.  

What Trump has again revealed is the utterly broken relationship between the ends, ways, and means of the British national interest.  Trump will also exact a price on NATO allies for their lack of support for his war on Iran.  He is likely to exact a particular price on the UK for what he regards as betrayal by America’s closest ally (not the oldest – that is France). If Trump is in a particularly vengeful mood he might even close one or all of the US bases in Britain, even if that causes self-harm to the US national interest and freezing the British out of the intelligence partnership.

Starmer?  He now faces a choice. He can either force the British people to live with even more insecurity and risk to their interests, which is the real meaning of the national interests. Or, he can bolster the national interest by investing in the instruments of power vital to it.  The appalling state of the British armed forces is not Starmer’s fault.  That accolade belongs to Brown, Cameron, May, and Johnson. However, if Starmer was really committed to realising the national interest he would move immediately to lessen dependence on the US by increasing defence investment. 

Starmer is doing the opposite. He pretends his government is making the greatest increase in UK defence spending since the Cold War whilst cutting the defence budget to pay for ever more social welfare.  There is still no sign of the long-promised Defence Investment Plan. He would also increase investment in the other instruments of power available to London, such as diplomacy and intelligence. He does not.  

The reason I dislike Starmer is not because I disagree with the ‘principles’ he outlined yesterday in his speech in Downing Street. It is because he is a strategic fraud.  He hides behind international law simply because he lacks strategic judgement. He talks about the national interest but does not have a plan to realise it and destroys the very instruments of power vital to it.  He rejects Trump’s bullying but makes Britain ever more vulnerable to it.  He talks about leadership and yet promotes sectarian politics for narrow political gain which is the very antithesis of leading a complex society in the twenty-first century world.  He routinely confuses values with interest, and his even greater confusion between the strategic and the political.  His biggest failing? He talks too much!

Julian Lindley-French  

Power Trumps Words (Again)

 

“War does not justify who is right…only who is left”.

Bertrand Russell

March .3 Power always Trumps words. The US-Israeli attack on Iran is illegal, pure and simple, which merely highlights the complete pointlessness of the debate over whether it is or not illegal.  The attack is what it is – Realpolitik, the final act of Israeli revenge for Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.  After killing Iran’s proxies Tel Aviv and Washington are now killing the Tehran regime who backed them.  Hamas has been effectively destroyed as a fighting force and Gaza reduced to ruins. Hezbollah is now broken and divided with Israel dominating southern Lebanon.  The Assad regime in Damascus is now history with Syria no longer a state threat to Israel.

The attack is also power red in tooth and claw that leaves Israel as the dominant power across the northern Middle East and Saudi Arabia, dominant in the southern Middle East. Iran is being systematically reduced in power and status with its hopes of becoming a nuclear power in tatters.  The Tehran regime is even struggling to survive in the wake of the assassinations of Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmedinejad.  Under the interim Council of Senior Officials, a shadow government of some 4000 Islamists and their fellow travellers, plus the 125,000 strong (or however many are left) Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are struggling to exercise the crumbling reins of power over a population of over 90 million people.  Their chances are slim given that the US, Israelis and others would not have launched such an attack if they had not already created the internal conditions for regime change. If the Tehran regime survives it will do so in name only as Iran becomes another broken state.   

The attack leaves the Americans as the real powerbrokers between the states of the Middle East with China and Russia the big losers.  Russia has been losing influence in the Middle East since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, something Turkey, the other big power broker in the region, has been watching with interest.  China’s policy in the region has always been at best opportunistic and designed to force the Americans to look many ways at once.  Europe? Irrelevant.

One of the other big losers in this conflict is Britain.  By refusing to let the US use its air bases in Britain for offensive operations London has put at risk the one thing that makes the Special Relationship in anyway special – the intelligence relationship.  The Americans cut London out of the intelligence loop prior to the attack.  Not that British appeasement of Tehran has benefitted Britain. Despite 20 attempted terrorist attacks on Britain and Starmer’s refusal to proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation one of the official regime slogans is “Death to England”.

Starmer is the Lord Halifax of his age – a well-meaning man who is simply incapable of understanding that such is the threat it cannot be appeased. He stands on a principle that not only does not exist, but which is a dangerous illusion in such an age. Britain is fast becoming a pathetic state, hiding behind a Potemkin façade of ‘international law’ that has never and never will prevent direct conflict between major powers, especially when they are locked in an existential struggle.  He claims he is playing Realpolitik by different rules when in fact he is a merely a lawyer who brings a legal writ to a gunfight, trying to play legal chess whilst those with real weight in the world play power poker.

The hard and simple truth is that there is no fence upon which to sit in a war between the Americans, Israelis and Iran. And yet, Starmer has reduced British foreign policy to precisely that, the search for non-existent fences upon which to sit. And for what?  To maintain the peace in a Britain that the political elite have done all they can to destabilise by importing the Middle East to Britain?  To appease the increasingly influential Hard Left of the Labour Party?  Starmer leans on international law as a crutch because he lacks any political or strategic judgement.  Not only is he incapable of leading Britain at such moments, but he is also rendering Britain incapable to!

International law may offer some minor protection for some individuals sometimes in the face of hostile states, but it offers no protection whatsoever for weaker states that use asymmetric weapons to attack stronger states.  This is exactly what Iran did as it sought and failed to buy sufficient time to acquire the one thing it believed would protect it – nuclear weapons.  That is why the regime is now paying a terrible price. 

Power always Trumps words. And when push comes to shove the strong really do what they can and the weak really do suffer what they must.

Julian Lindley-French