https://arab.news/23gd5
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.
