The UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, along with several of the key European allies, are now putting out a party line that tacitly supports the US bombing of Iran, even though just last week they were trying to negotiate with Iran. The degree of subservience to America is staggering. Lammy says:
Iran must never have a nuclear weapon. The US has now taken action to alleviate that threat,
This is interesting. Iran is a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty. Their nuclear programme was legitimate within the terms of the NPT. Bombing Iran and ending their legitimate enrichment programme is a direct assault on the actual international system. It is all the more surprising, given that the UK’s ally in the region, currently committing genocide in Gaza, (with the UK’s help), is not a member of the NPT and has an undeclared nuclear weapons programme. Next time Lammy talks about the “international rules based order”, people all around the world will remember quite how selectively he applies this.
I’ve just started reading The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order by Glenn Diesen. (I’ll review it in a few weeks). Lammy’s contribution reminded me of this comment, by Diesen: “Liberal hegemony replaced international law with the rules-based international order and reinvented diplomacy as a subject-object civilizing mission”. [1] Iran, the savages, cannot have a nuclear bomb. We, the civilised, can. (No matter that our ally in the region who has the bomb is an apartheid state currently deliberately starving children to death in pursuit of its illegal land grab in Gaza).
Keir Starmer, who really does seem to struggle with International Relations, also thinks bombing Iran is fine. He explained that Iran had walked away from negotiations – and so, in effect, “had it coming”. But; the choice Iran was offered by the US in negotiations was “completely surrender or be bombed”. This was not a negotiation. This was an ultimatum. Iran did not reject “negotiations” as Starmer claimed. (He is lying to his own public for PR purposes). Iran rejected an ultimatum. As Lammy sets the tone with his disregard for International Law so Starmer establishes how the West does diplomacy; “do what we say or we will bomb you”. Diesen, again: what the West wants is “Full sovereignty for the liberal West, and limited sovereignty for the rest”.
For completeness; it seems to me that there is a realist case that explains why Israel cannot accept Iran having a strong civilian nuclear programme with the only line between that and them having a bomb, being a UN inspections team. No states can truly no the intentions of the other and must fear the worst. There is no room for both Israel and Iran to be the regional hegemon in the Middle East. Israel, it seems to me, has a reason to be concerned. (This does not excuse the genocide and nor does it mean I agree with the bombing or Israel’s campaign in Iran. I am just noting that this argument could be made. There are counter-arguments which also refer to Israel’s security). But, what I find so odious is UK and European politicians signing up for this act of brute power in contravention of all conventions of International Law, and yet, next week, they will go on the airwaves again and claim that Putin and Russia are violating International Law in Ukraine and we must defend Ukraine to the end to defend International Law, (or their version of it, “the international rules based order”).
Notes
- The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order by Glenn Diesen. Clarity Press 2024.