Could the UK get dragged into war with Iran?

Read time: 3 minutes

In brief:

• Israel is at war with Iran, with Trump approving potential US strike plans targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, though he hasn't made a final decision yet.
• Britain may be forced to support US military action by allowing use of the Diego Garcia air base, despite PM Starmer calling for de-escalation.
• The News Agents argue UK involvement wouldn't serve national interests due to financial constraints and the contradictory position of supporting Netanyahu's government while having sanctions against Israeli ministers.

What’s the story?

Israel is at war with Iran, the US may be at war with Iran, and the big question now is whether the UK will get involved, if called upon by President Trump.

Donald Trump has approved plans to attack the country, but has not made a final decision on whether to go ahead with an attack.

He told reporters “I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I'm going to do” - that much, at least, is true.

The president wants supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to abandon Iran’s nuclear programme, but when Khamenei rejected a surrender on Wednesday (18 June), Trump said his “patience was running out”.

A US strike on Iran would target the Fordo nuclear facility, an uranium enrichment facility deep underground in a mountainous region in South Tehran.

Whilst Israel have taken control of Iran’s skies - their aim to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, is only possible with help from the US, as only the US has a bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), large enough to reach the depth of the site.

As Trump’s elusive ‘we may and we may not’ attitude to the strike continuing, the prime minister, hot off his flight back to Britain from the G7 summit, called an emergency COBRA meeting to review how Britain might respond to a major escalation.

How could the UK get involved?

Keir Starmer has said the UK is “very concerned about the nuclear program that Iran is developing” and “completely recognises Israel's right to self defense” - but ultimately, he’s called for "de-escalation".

Emily Maitlis says that Keir Starmer is sending a “pretty clear message” - that “he does not want this country to follow whatever America is thinking of doing in terms of military action.”

That may be so - but Starmer can’t stop Trump from getting involved in the war, and if he chooses to, the UK could be called upon to help facilitate their attack.

If Trump chooses to strike Iran, the US may need to use Diego Garcia, a shared UK-US air base in the Chagos Islands. Starmer would have to sign-off on the US use of the base.

If Trump comes calling, Emily says “it’s hard to see how we would say no.”

“That might also mean extra military support in one form or another, and the UK being dragged into a war that literally, 10 days ago, none of us were talking about,” Lewis Goodall adds.

Lewis points out that though Starmer is calling for de-escalation, “Netanyahu definitely doesn't want de-escalation” and “Trump isn't calling for de-escalation either”.

“Trump has been explicit that until Iran comes back around the table on terms that he approves of and Netanyahu approves of, then there really isn't any point in de-escalation yet.

“Now that doesn't mean that Trump might not change his mind in the next few days - but it does leave Starmer in a really difficult position,” he adds.

What’s The News Agents’ take?

Although the UK does not want Iran to join Pakistan, India, Russia and Israel in having a nuclear bomb and Lewis acknowledges that the Iranian regime is “appalling” - both Lewis and Emily agree that it would not be in the “national interest” for Britain to get involved..

Not only would it add to world instability, but Emily points out, we simply “cannot afford it”.

“We can't even afford a train line that gets from the north of the country to the south of the country,” she says.

“What on earth are we doing, throwing more money at something that we can't afford?”

In joining the US’s fight, Starmer would also face the contradictory position of being on the side of Netanyahu’s government - who at the moment, would be arrested if he stepped foot in the UK.

“The British government themselves have imposed sanctions on two senior Israeli ministers. In these circumstances, is Starmer going to turn around to the British public and say; ‘all that's all true, but now we're going to help all of these people in this war of aggression that they're fighting against Iran’?” Lewis says.

A strike would also leave open the question of regime change in Iran, and while Ayatollah's current regime “deserves to go into the dust”, Lewis says, “we do not know what would replace it in these circumstances”.

“We've seen when we try to deliver democracy from 30,000 feet, how that can go,” he adds.

But there is still the possibility that diplomacy will triumph before it gets to war.

A contact that Emily has been speaking to - who has been in the recent discussions - believes that Trump and Israel do want to continue negotiations.

Emily explains; “He said, what you should be looking at is who they've actually taken out in Iran, they've taken out the nuclear scientists, they've taken out members of the IGC, they've taken out people working on the facilities - but they've left all the politicians intact, and that sends a signal.”

It’s been less than a week since Israel first struck Iran, but things are moving at an intense speed - something Emily thinks wouldn’t have happened if there were more women leaders.

“There is so much machismo to the language, to the aggression, to the speed of what is happening right now,” she says.

“You see men who are desperate to talk about war, and even prepared to fight wars.”

This is in spite of the population not necessarily backing such wars.

“The population of Israel, the population of America, is not willing their leaders to strike yet more countries. They're saying the opposite,” Emily adds.

“They're saying; ‘Trump got elected to keep out of wars, to pull America away from foreign wars. So what is the level of the ego and machismo of the men in charge that they think this is a solution for the world.

“It beggars belief.”

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.