Have We Learnt Nothing from the Iraq War?

Let’s just remind ourselves. The invasion of Iraq promised security through regime change but delivered over 200,000 civilian deaths, regional destabilisation, and a generation shaped by trauma and extremism. There is no evidence that this assault will fare any better.

Starmer may not have supported Trump’s initial attack but the assertion that allowing British airbases to be used for American killing sprees is somehow defensive is patent nonsense.  Calling something defensive doesn’t make it so.

If Trump’s attack on Iran is illegal then so is our action in facilitating it.  Instead of breaking the rule of law Britain should be speaking up for it. We should be calling for peace not facilitating an escalation.

It is also morally wrong.

Behind the strategic language lies human suffering. Civilian deaths are not collateral abstractions but the predictable moral cost of escalation. More than 1,000 civilians dead already including 180 school children. Tens of thousands of ordinary citizens displaced.

While Trump and Hegseth salivate over their superior firepower from the safety of Washington, real lives are being torn apart and many more are going to follow.

And, let us not forget, this is the President who tells Europe to stand on its own two feet but then expects us to join his illegal war when he clicks his fingers.

This is the President who sought the Nobel Peace Prize but is now bombing a sovereign territory.  Our job is not to enable him, it’s to say no, not in our name.  Instead, we are turning legal somersaults to try to please him. And how is that working for Starmer? Not great judging by Trump’s most recent tirade.

Britain should be using the heft it still has to be calling, like Spain, for de-escalation. Strengthening international order requires consistent application of legal norms, not selective enforcement.

Appeasing a powerful ally does not make us safer; it makes us complicit and it also makes us a legitimate target for Iranian retaliation.

Supporting this war in whatever ‘limited’ way, is a political and strategic own goal not just for the UK but also for our European allies.

Who will benefit from the spike in oil prices that is already resulting? Vladimir Putin. Oil and gas revenues account for roughly a third of Russia’s state income. A $10 rise in the price of a barrel of oil can translate into billions more for Putin’s war machine in Ukraine. Escalation in the Gulf does not occur in isolation; it feeds directly into Europe’s primary security crisis.

Add to that the cost for ordinary people here in the UK. Reeve’s fiscal challenges just got exponentially harder. Rising oil prices, combined with the costs of military involvement, are going to dwarf the challenges laid out in her statement today. The money we don’t have for our schools and hospitals will now be spent on an illegal war.

None of this makes sense. It is morally wrong, economically disastrous, legally incoherent and strategically terrifying.  Starmer may not be Trump’s poodle in the same way that Blair was Bush’s. But he is still trotting too closely after him and that has to stop.

Jennifer Nadel is the Co-Founder of Compassion in Politics.

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