Faced with a war, each European country fights with its own ghosts. The one in the United Kingdom is called Iraq. This is the only way to understand Keir Starmer’s solemn statement this Monday before the British Parliament, with his attack, and Iran, with its response.
The British Prime Minister has gone in 72 hours from denying any aid to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu and defending a negotiated solution to the nuclear threat from Iran. But he has never stopped marking distance with an action—the direct offensive against the Tehran regime—that he considers illegal and ineffective.
“We all remember the mistakes of Iraq, and we have learned those lessons. The UK’s actions will always have a legal basis, and will be viable in accordance with a well-thought-out plan,” the Prime Minister assured, to the relief of Labor MPs. “We did not participate in the initial attacks against Iran, and we are not going to join this offensive now,” he promised.
But even to justify an increase in “defensive” aid to the United States, Starmer has tried to avoid the two mistakes that sank Tony Blair’s Labor Government. To begin with, the British Prime Minister has sought the umbrella of two fundamental allies in Europe: France and Germany, in which they committed to respond to any attack by Iran on their interests or that of their allies in the region.
Exactly what London has begun to do, with the difference that the British military presence and interests in the Middle East is notably greater than that of its two allies. And it’s really what interests Trump. Starmer is always on a tightrope, in a precarious and constant balancing act to avoid irritating Washington, preserve the “special relationship” between both countries and keep calm a Labor base that does not even want to hear about going to war at the hands of the American president.
For this reason, secondly, Starmer has ensured – he has even published the previous report from the Downing Street legal team – that his decision for greater involvement in the conflict was in accordance with international legality.
“The only way to stop the threat [de Irán] “is to destroy their missiles at source, both in the storage depots and on the launch platforms,” Starmer explained, after pointing out that nearly 300,000 Britons reside or are in transit in the region, and that the Tehran regime had already attacked bases in Bahrain or Cyprus with United Kingdom military personnel.
[atacar los depósitos de misiles]because they have the capacity to do so. That is why we have made the decision to accept that request, with the purpose of preventing Iran from launching its missiles throughout the region, murdering innocent civilians, putting British lives at risk and ending up hitting countries that had not participated in the previous attack,” Starmer justified before the House of Commons.
The prime minister’s final message, however, had something of a direct refutation of direct intervention against Iran: “This Government does not consider that a regime can be changed.” [el de Teherán] from the air,” he warned.
Germany’s capacity
For the German Government, possible measures aimed at “facilitating a necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s ability to fire missiles and drones at source” have few practical effects. It is a movement that rather protects and ‘Europeanizes’ London’s transfer of its military bases to the US.
Unlike the United Kingdom, Germany “does not have the necessary military means” [en la región]”, explained this Monday the German Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul. “The Federal Republic does not intend to participate in any way [en la operación]”, he added. The joint declaration of the E3 (as the informal military cooperation agreement of the three countries is called) allows each of the signatories to apply it to their intentions and needs: for Berlin, it implies only the ability to defend its military in countries like Iraq and Jordan.
Germany will protect the troops of this country stationed in several bases in the Persian Gulf area, but does not contemplate any other form of participation in the United States and Israel operation.
France, with the foot changed
The attack by the US and Israel on Iran has caught France off guard, compromised in recent months. Especially in Lebanon, where President Emmanuel Macron had personally participated in the peace process with the disarmament of the Shiite group Hezbollah in favor of the Lebanese Armed Forces and a specific conference on the region. The US military operation now alters all those plans.
Beyond the vague E3 statement, the French Ministry of Defense has not detailed what the defensive deployment would consist of. France has around 900 soldiers in Abu Dhabi at the Mina Zayed naval base and the Al-Dhafra air base. French Rafale planes from said base intervened over the weekend to neutralize drones. In addition, Paris is linked through defense agreements with several states in the region, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, all of which are affected. If these countries request it, Paris can decide to mobilize the military resources it already has deployed in the area. Three military ships would also be on the way.
In fact, Macron decided this Monday to convene another security council again to analyze the evolution of the conflict in the Middle East in recent hours.
Germany and France also staged their military harmony this Monday through the signing of a nuclear cooperation treaty. Both countries said in a statement that they “have created a high-level nuclear steering group that will act as a bilateral framework for doctrinal dialogue and coordination of strategic cooperation, including consultations on the appropriate mix of French conventional, missile defense and nuclear capabilities.”
