Watching British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announce that Britain is joining U.S. military operations against Iran was like listening to a broadcast from the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984.

Speaking from Downing Street with Union Jack flags behind his shoulders, Starmer affected a somber, reassuring tone, saying that Britain was permitting the United States to use British military bases for “defensive strikes” to prevent Iran from “firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians.”

The British leader’s ability for double-think is impressive. Even after making the announcement, he assured the public that Britain’s involvement is not “offensive”. This is while the U.S. uses British bases in England, Cyprus, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to mount bombing raids on Iran, which have so far killed nearly 800 civilians in only a matter of days. Civilian deaths from Iranian strikes across the region – so far, fewer than 20 – are a tiny fraction of that figure.

For several weeks, the United States had been flying squadrons of fighter jets and refueling tankers to Britain on their way to the Middle East for what has now turned out to be a major war with Iran. Starmer previously maintained the double-think that Britain wasn’t going to let its bases be used by Trump for any eventual war. The British premier said that this reluctance was based on “lessons learnt” from the Iraq War in 2003 when his predecessor Tony Blair had backed the George W Bush administration in launching a disastrous decade-long conflict that resulted in over one million deaths, millions of displaced, and regionwide terrorism that continues to haunt multiple........

© Eurasia Review