Pious but Naïve

Wavell Room Audio Reads

The episode critically examines the UK government's decision to deny US requests for airbase access during Operation Epic Fury, framing Prime Minister Keir Starmer's stance as

Key takeaways

• PM Keir Starmer refused US access to RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia citing international law and ethical foreign policy, despite NSC awareness of imminent Iranian threats.
• Attorney General Lord Richard Herma provided legal advice that heavily influenced the cabinet's decision to avoid offensive military involvement.

Main topics

• UK foreign policy and airbase denial
• Operation Epic Fury and US-UK alliance dynamics

Notable quotes

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.

Conclusion

The episode argues that ethical caution in foreign policy must be balanced with strategic realism,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Pious but naive. Britain's decision to refuse the use of its air bases for Operation Epic Fury. Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, and without sneering, teach the rest to sneer, willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike. Alexander Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. When explaining his reaction to American requests to use IAF airbases in the early phases of Operation Epic Fury, Britain's Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer presented himself as an honest and trustworthy, but independently-minded, ally of America. This approach was entirely consistent with his excruciatingly transparent faux attempts at bonhomie with President Donald Trump, epitomised by his inauthentic fawning to the American leader whenever the two meet on the world stage. Starmer, it seems, wanted to maintain the illusion of Britain's commitment to the special relationship with America, while separately forging a pathway to closer political, economic and military relations with the European Union. Unfortunately for Starmer, the subterfuge began to unravel when Israel and America decided to attack Iran. The war has exposed the obvious antipathy with which Trump is held by many ministers in Starmer's Labour government cabinet. Consequently, the requests for permission to use IAF Fairford and the jointly operated Diego Garcia Air Base as launch pads for American missions against the cruel, murderous and belligerent Iranian theocracy were refused. Since then, the British have attempted to explain away the rationale for the initial rejection as a consequence of government's desire to adhere to an ethical and coherent foreign policy designed to satisfy Britain's national interests. The Attorney General, Lord Richard Herma, the architect of the initiative to give the strategically important Indian Ocean Island base, Diego Garcia, to China-friendly Mauritius, a judge that permitting the launch of attacks from British territory, without a sufficiently robust reason for doing so, would break international law.1 Understandably, the American administration was not impressed. Pete Hegseth The United States Secretary of War expressed his frustration at the decision thus. Capable partners are good partners. Unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and whoring about the use of force. 2. Nevertheless, many, if not most, of Britain's mainstream media outlets expressed broad sympathy with Hamas' understanding of the legitimacy of the attacks on Iran. With a routinely positive spin on appraisals of Starmer's desire to adopt an ethical approach to the country's foreign policy dilemmas.3 The population was similarly influenced. At Prime Minister's questions in the House of Commons on 4 March, Starmer appeared enthused by polling undertaken three days earlier, which appeared to vindicate the popularity of the stance the government had taken. He confidently argued that the emphasis on defence, rather than attack, would help keep us safe, and thereby safeguard our national interests. This approach certainly resonated with the nation's pacifists, who are inclined to believe that war has no justifiable basis, as well as with those who are instinctively anti-American, and or anti-Trump. Starmer wasn't prepared for the UK to join a war unless he was satisfied there was a lawful basis and a viable thought-through plan to enact it, for this assessment, of course. implied that the evidence presented to senior ministers in the National Security Council meetings did not indicate that Iran was close to procuring a nuclear weapon and that other nefarious concurrent activity Iran routinely undertook against Western interests, which might have met the threshold necessary to satisfy a more robust response, was not imminent. Nonetheless, Starmer's statement to the House of Commons suggested that if other evidence had been forthcoming, or that other coordinated activities across the globe might soon occur to delay, deny and paralyse an effective response to say, an invasion of Taiwan, the bar of legal legitimacy needed to justify pre-emptive strikes against Iran might been reached or even exceeded. In essence, Starmer's cabinet was invoking the lessons identified by the Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. In doing so, they appear to have overlooked the equally relevant unintended consequences of pacifism in England in the 1930s. At that time, when the horrors of the First World War, think Afghanistan 2001 and Iraq 2003, was still a recent memory for many living adults. There was widespread antipathy about rearmament and almost no support for Britain's involvement in another major war.5 David Reynolds has described how the resultant peace movement saw 407,000 people join the League of Nations Union and another 118,000 join the Peace Pledge Union. Such large numbers of overtly peace-focused voters influenced the British establishment to appease rather than confront the emergent fascist and communist dictators.6 In doing so, they were merely reflecting the mood in the country. The undergraduates at Oxford University in 1933, for instance, voted overwhelmingly for a jode resolution, the intention not fight for king and country in any future war. Though the students thought they were emphasising their desire for peace Benito Mussolini thought otherwise. He deduced that the vote provided a credible indicator of Britain's martial decline, with the result that he increased his belligerence.7. What evidence did the cabinet consider before responding to the American request to use British bases, and presumably to request British assistance in the forthcoming air and space campaign against Iraq? According to David Stokes, The Iranian regime has become a structural component of Chinese strategic architecture, with China the largest market for Iranian oil. Some 70 % of the oil it burns comes from Iran, carried in shadow fleets of tankers, secured at prices negotiated below market rates.8 Stokes argued that the China has accumulated enough cheap Iranian oil to provide the regime with reserves necessary to sustain their economy for around 100 days. which might just be enough time to mitigate the effects of any American-led Pacific naval blockade. Iran has also acted as a Chinese proxy in the Middle East, bogging down American and British forces in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza, which has helped reduce the intensity of the spotlight on Chinese objectives in the Far East. China's main foreign policy objective, since 1978, has been to return Taiwan to the motherland. Xi Jinping directed the People's Liberation Army to be ready to take control of the island by 2027. Despite the much less threatening date of 2049 being touted as the strategic target by which this aspiration should be accomplished.9 in the weeks before the American and Israeli strikes. Reuters reported that Iran was about to finalize a deal with China for CM. 302 supersonic antiship cruise missiles, which could have been used to strangle the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz.10 reports. In the American