BREAKING: Trump charges against Starmer for not participating in the attack on Iran: “The special relationship between our countries is no longer what it was” | International
According to recent reports, the following story has emerged from the international scene.
Some British press has dubbed it Keir Starmer’s “Love Actually moment,” that scene from the romantic comedy that must be rerun every Christmas in which the British Prime Minister, represented by Hugh Grant, stands up in a press conference, to the delight of his advisors, journalists and the public, to the thuggery of the American president, who reacts with unpleasant surprise to the rebellion of his traditional ally. Donald Trump is irritated because Starmer – his friend, his accomplice, a “good guy,” as he came to define him, has said that the concerted attack by the United States and Israel against Iran is illegal, and what is worse, ineffective, because “a political regime is not changed from the air.” Trump was quick to vent his anger, in a telephone interview with The Sun newspaper. “[Starmer] It hasn’t helped much. I never thought I’d say this. I never thought I would see this from the UK. France, for example, has been fantastic. Everyone has been fantastic. The United Kingdom has behaved very differently,” complained the American. British military base of the Faiford RAF in Glocestershire (England), on Monday. Andrew Matthews – PA Images (PA Images via Getty Images) The truth is that the reaction of the British Government has been completely in step with that of allies as important as France and Germany. The three countries (E3) responded at the weekend with a joint statement, to avoid disagreements. They would not participate in the attacks against Iran, They said, but they would put their military forces at the disposal of any defensive strategy in the area, to protect their own national interests and those of their allies. And the most obvious interpretation of that text was that Paris and Berlin provided cover for London for its next steps. Because the United Kingdom has more presence, more bases and more interests in the region than its other two allies. Since that same Saturday, British Typhoon and F-35 fighter jets were flying over the Middle East on defensive missions. And if at first Starmer denied. It took Trump 48 hours to use his bases in the area to launch the offensive against Iran. The prime minister announced on Sunday that the US army could use the British facilities, with the sole “defensive” purpose of attacking the Iranian missile depots. For Trump, the US president was “very disappointed” with the British prime minister and attacked him again. “It was the strongest relationship of all. We now have stronger relations with other European countries. It’s a different world, indeed. Our relationship with your country is now very different from what it was,” he tells The Sun journalist. The US president’s irritation has been increasing throughout this Tuesday. In his mid-afternoon appearance, he lumped in his criticisms of the governments of Spain and the United Kingdom. “The lack of cooperation [de Londres] It is quite surprising, but it is clear that we are not in the era of Churchill,” Trump said. The American’s “disappointment” with Starmer began to brew a few days before the attack on Iran, when the prime minister made it clear that he could not use the joint British-American base on Diego García Island, in the Chagos Archipelago, for that operation. The US Administration has had an erratic response to the historic agreement to return this group of islands to Mauritius, closed last year. It has given its approval; it has criticized later. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, extolled the virtues of the agreement. Trump then defined it as an “act of stupidity.” With the utilitarian vision of the world that the American has, the idea of redressing an act of colonization and injustice with the natives displaced decades ago from those islands is an act of surrender to the identity politics of the left. “We call it the woke island,” Trump tried to ironically in the interview. that return −“that stupid island….that they have decided to hand over”− in a more virulent way “They have agreed on a hundred-year lease. [ese es el pacto sobre el uso de la base en Diego García]in response to the supposed claims of an indigenous population that has probably never seen it. And as a result, they have ruined our relationship. “It’s a shame,” Trump roared. Starmer, the humanist lawyer More than two decades ago, when Starmer was not in politics (he was not even a member of the Labor Party) nor did he dream of becoming prime minister, his voice was one of the loudest against the Iraq war launched by George W. Bush and supported by Tony Blair, against international legality and citizen outcry. Tony Blair and George W Bush in Rome, on May 28, 2002. Eric VANDEVILLE (Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images) The human rights lawyer who was Starmer was convinced that nothing good comes from an illegal action. The shadow of that war has accompanied his career during those years. That is why this Monday, when during two and a half hours of appearance in the House of Commons, he stood up to Trump, many Labor deputies breathed a sigh of relief and applauded. It is true that it was difficult to explain how one could maintain distance from what happened (even reject the attack against Iran) and at the same time give in to the use of military bases. It is not such a clear line to define the possible attacks launched from those bases against the Iranian military arsenal. But in what Starmer was obliged to say, his words were very clear. “We all remember the mistakes of Iraq and we have learned the lessons. Any action by the United Kingdom will always have a legal basis and a well-conceived plan,” he said. The subtle way of a prime minister not very prone to conflict of saying that the war launched by Trump and Netanyahu was illegal and clumsy.
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Source: This article was originally published in another language by Internacional en EL PAÍS and has been translated and adapted for our global English-speaking audience. Read the original article here.