Is all this talk about war an attempt from Starmer to impress Donald Trump?

Daily Mirror

4 days ago

So Sir Keir Starmer is ramping up the rhetoric and re-upping on the UK's defence weaponry.
The Prime Minister has announced a £1billion deal to buy 12 nuclear-ready F35A jets from the US.
That will warm the hearts of the millions of UK citizens unaware of where their next meal will come from. Or the voters bracing themselves for welfare cuts.
As the legendary rapper Tupac Shakur once said: 'They got money for wars but they can't feed the poor."
The government is warning us to prepare for war on home soil for the first time since the German occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War.
But why?
The National Security Strategy document, out earlier this week, is suggesting there are threats from nukes, troops, terrorism, chemical warfare and so much much more.
A country like the UK would have threats against it all the time. But if there is a specific, credible worry to us then surely they should be telling us, shouldn't they?
Because it smells worryingly like an attempt to confect an appetite for war.
Anyone able to think for themselves could be forgiven for noting a similarity with the flawed dossier used in 2003 to justify joining the US-led Iraq war.
And it really does appear that we in this country have learned nothing from that devastating conflict.
On the basis of 'sexed up' evidence - parroted on TV, radio and in print by every lapdog politician and his or her dog back then - Tony Blair's Labour government joined George W.Bush for a conflict that the then-United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, would later describe as 'illegal'.
Around 150,000 people - 120,000 of them civilians - died as a result. It was a war that would create new martyrs, new terrorists, new dangers, death and destruction in the west.
Dissenters at the time were dismissed as unpatriotic as this country leaned into the bloodlust of which the current climate is frighteningly reminiscent.
So, again, the question now is the same as it was then. Where is the evidence? Or was it an attempt to roll up his sleeve and flex his bicep to prove to US President Donald Trump that Starmer too is able to flex?
Because, on the basis of historic Anglo-American foreign policy, a number of countries around the world have been burning flags and saying unkind things about the west for decades now. Far from ideal, but there you go.
So what else?
Iran, which hasn't attacked anyone directly for decades, has supposedly been three months away from a nuclear bomb for 30 years.
They weren't even involved this whole caboodle until Israel starting bombing them last week.
Now we hear that the US intelligence reports suggest the bombing raids over the weekend were nowhere near as successful in 'obliterating' the core component's of Iran's nuclear capability as Donald Trump has been suggesting.
The US President has stuck to his guns and has adopted his favourite strategy of shooting the messengers, the media contingent willing to point out that actually, the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes.
But sadly, while he and his ago remain intent on hunting down a Nobel Prize, the appetite here appears to be to foment that appetite for conflict.
Even to characterise the Iranians as a clear and present danger - even though precisely nobody was talking in those terms even a month ago - is fascinating.
Starmer seems determined to turn some of the attention onto himself, and it feels like an attempt to elbow his way into a conversation that doesn't concern this country.
Throw in the fact that we in Britain love to invoke wartime rhetoric, and that Starmer can frame himself as the PM able to keep this country safe, and here we are.
But we are whipping up fear when the facts completely contradict the narrative that our leaders in this country, across Europe and Stateside are pushing.
And, worryingly, it has left Iran doing exactly what many feared: pulling out of talks to keep weapons inspectors apprised of what they are up to.
You'd have to assume they will also carry on exploring the nuclear option after being told they cannot have one by the west - most of whose countries have one themselves.
If Iran wanted to create any kind of WMD, for example, they'll have had the capability to do so - and use one - for years, wouldn't they?
And even if you didn't want to surmise, what about the actual US Intelligence stating (until Trump's intervention) that there was no evidence the Iranians were knee deep in malign intent?
What about the International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi who remains adamant that the Iranians had not been building a nuclear weapon?
At what point did we stop listening to the experts in favour of the leaders keen to evoke war - euphemistically described as 'peace through strength' - on vibes?
The big picture is that Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, is so desperate to keep Trump from pulling America out of the Alliance that his performance at Wednesday's media briefing was embarrassing.
So much so that he needed a torch to climb out of the President's tradesman's entrance.
It was little surprise, then, to see him soothing the ego of Trump by insisting the President and his utterly unqualified acolytes were right, you can bomb a mountain and wipe out materials buried so deep underground you'd need to enter another time zone to find them.
It is the theatre of the absurd but whatever the truth of the matter, Starmer should be better than this. Much better.
Ends