05 Mar There are few “faraway places” left: how the United States’ attack on Iran pushes UK foreign and domestic policy even closer together

As the crisis in the Middle East has evolved, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed that the UK did not and will not participate in the US/Israeli attacks on Iran, either with its own forces or by allowing the use of UK bases for offensive purposes, but will deploy its military assets in defence of UK interests and allies in the region. In support of this position he has invoked international law, saying that “this government does not believe in regime change from the skies”, notwithstanding his strong condemnation of the Iranian regime. Opinion polling suggests that the government’s position enjoys widespread support among British people, unlike President Trump’s action, even though there are strong voices advocating for UK support for the United States and Israel and others equally strongly seeking to distance the UK even further.

The United States’ objectives in Iran are unclear

Despite Donald Trump’s tough rhetoric, it’s still not clear what the real United States objective is, or rather what will be considered sufficient to declare victory. Although initially he claimed to be seeking to neutralise the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, he has since made clear that this is now not enough for him. In any case, success on the nuclear issue would need to go well beyond the terms of the Obama-era JCPOA which Trump rejected from the outset. Having worked on the “E3” negotiations with Iran in the early 2000s, I saw them as, for both sides, an effective if often turbulent way of kicking the can down the road.  Given the potential for conflict and, in particular in the aftermath of the Iraq war, the attraction for the West was obvious, but the road was never likely to extend indefinitely. At some point, the nuclear question and the future of the Islamic Republic would become inseparable. Donald Trump has forced that moment.

This brings us de facto to regime change. It it’s clear that regime change is extraordinarily difficult to achieve “from the skies”. What we don’t know is how much the US and Israel, with the support of other less evident allies, have been able to do to prepare the ground with those Iranians keen to overthrow the regime. It’s also unclear what a new regime that would satisfy the US and Israel would look like.  We certainly shouldn’t expect something which resembles an imported liberal democracy. From the Israeli perspective, a weak Iran in any form would be a huge improvement on the status quo ante. US and Israeli interests might not be identical, but an Iran which is internally (more or less) stable and externally unthreatening would surely count as a substantial victory for President Trump. The West, including the UK, would doubtless be content with this outcome too, however much some may be uncomfortable with the way in which it had been brought about.

The conflict risks consequences far beyond Iran

Meanwhile, the conflict has spread beyond Iran and Israel with attacks in the Gulf States and to United States and UK interests, including on Cyprus. Observers focused on the geopolitics should also not underestimate the (domestic) political importance to a democratic government of the imperative to protect their nationals caught up in a crisis abroad; this will also inevitably drive policy including military decisions. The economic consequences, driven by increased energy prices, are already being felt.  A protracted conflict could lead to a rise in Iranian-inspired terrorism outside the region, including in Europe as well as increased migrant flows which could also be weaponised in order to destabilise Western interests. A weakened Iran would also be vulnerable to centrifugal pressures from its many minority groups, particularly those in areas touching Iran’s borders. In short, the US/Israeli action is a high-risk strategy, though the reward – an Iran no longer aggressively interfering in the region and beyond – would be transformational.  Only time will tell whether the gamble pays off: this will depend in good measure on how good the preparations for the “day after” have been and for how long the US and Israel are prepared to sustain the action before “declaring victory”.

Five key takeaways for UK domestic politics

As a legacy of Britain’s history and, more recently, of the post-Cold War period of Western hegemony, the public debate on foreign policy can often appear rather detached from an urgent sense of national interest. There’s a tendency to debate the rights and wrongs, argue as to who’s the good guy and who’s the bad and stand in judgement on how the world should be, as though from a lofty distance. Often international law is cited without an understanding of what it is and where its limitations lie and as though it is just domestic law writ large.

In reality, like every other country, The UK is an actor with interests to defend in a difficult world – and certain capabilities with which to defend itself. A few thoughts on what this means today:

1.) The gap between a polarised domestic debate focused on international law, reflecting different constituencies and sets of values, is at increasing odds with geopolitical reality. Though there are good arguments that the United States action is consistent with international law (as some of the United States’ European allies have accepted), Trump is certainly not relying on them. The UK alongside European and other allies like Australia and Canada will be increasingly squeezed between a desire to retain “values” which they have come to see as defining, and their national interests which for the foreseeable future depend on a close collaborative relationship with the United States. With the UK political parties from Reform UK to the Greens taking opposed views on these questions, understanding how domestic identities and framings (“how do we want to see ourselves?”) influence positions on foreign policy becomes all the more important. Just as not all positions on Brexit were driven by calculations about trade flows, so not all views on international law reflect an understanding of the UN Charter.

2.) Until last week, the UK’s foreign policy focus was primarily on Europe, Ukraine and NATO. In the short term, increased oil prices – absent more stringent and effective international sanctions – can benefit Russia. In the long term, if Iran is (at least) neutralised, Putin loses a valuable ally. A protracted conflict and/or post-conflict instability could distract Trump from attention to Ukraine and maybe also make American opinion less willing to devote resources to “foreign wars”. The UK and allies may find it harder to retain US support if Trump’s resentment at our stance on Iran persists. The interdependencies can play in opposing directions: attacking Iran can be seen as an unnecessary distraction when we should be focusing on Russia or at least accidentally beneficial if regime change weakens Moscow’s power.

3.) As with previous conflicts in the Middle East, the implications for energy will be key: 2026 is not 1974, especially for the US, but for Europe and the UK seeking to constrain Russia, gas supplies from the region remain essential in addition to oil. The UK is particularly poorly placed to handle inflationary shocks. The UK could mitigate the impacts of a prolonged shock by moderating its outlier energy policies, but this would cut across not only climate policies strongly entrenched in domestic politics, including the governing Labour Party, but also vested producer interests. What started as a geopolitical problem may directly impact on what is for many a defining domestic “net zero” debate. This is an additional reason for the UK to have a strong interest in the early establishment of stability in the Gulf.

4.) The elite discussion on funding the UK’s defence capabilities prompted by Donald Trump’s return to the White House has so far scarcely cut through, certainly not as far as a significant additional government commitment. But the UK’s inability to deploy assets at scale, for example to protect the Cyprus SBAs, could well accelerate pressure particularly if we are seen to be relying on others to protect our own citizens and assets in the region. While this is clearly the result of decades of underinvestment, it falls to the government of the day to take the necessary steps, not just in terms of money but also in terms of a coordinated – and much more efficient – national effort to fill the gaps and demonstrate to allies, notably the US, that we are prepared to pull our weight in our own and collective defence. With public trust in domestic politics very much lacking, it may only be possible to take this step if some kind of cross-party consensus can be built.

5.) The imperative of building up hard power quickly depends on a strengthening economy. At a time of potential headwinds from energy prices and wider inflation, the defence crisis contributes itself to an economic crisis. Strong leadership, again with as much of a bipartisan element as possible, would see this as a moment to press ahead with otherwise difficult structural reforms to accelerate growth, with the national interest in defence as a counterbalance to otherwise entrenched economic interests. This would require not only political will but also the ability to argue more clearly for the links between foreign and domestic policy decisions.

The Gulf is farther away from the UK than the Czechoslovakia that inspired Chamberlain’s long-remembered observation “of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing”. But the very direct implications of today’s conflict in the Middle East also very much call into play the interaction between our national security and economic health and require a domestic as much as foreign policy response.