Trump reprimands Starmer for being "worried about the legality" of Iran war

Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate.

He's weak and he's ineffective.

So the only way he figures that he's going to get re-elected and as sure as you're sitting

there is to start a war with Iran.

Well, I suppose even a stock clock is right twice a day, although Donald Trump in that

clip from 2011 was of course talking about Barack Obama who didn't start a war with Iran.

And of course this is essentially the second time that Trump has either started or indeed

joined a war with Iran.

The last time was all those Eons epochs ages ago in June of 2025 which led his ally Benjamin

Netanyahu to declare a historic victory which will stand for generations.

So where do you even start on a day like today?

I think the most important, there are two things I'd begin with.

The first is the near impossibility of accurately analysing activity undertaken by terrible

terrible people and bare face liars.

It makes it almost impossible to get a bead in a traditional sense on what is going on.

You, even if you are politically opposed to past leaders, you acknowledge the existence

and the application of international law.

You acknowledge the ability to perceive tactical advantage or tactical activity, tactical

plans.

You can see the necessity of getting congress to approve any action like the one that Donald

Trump under took over the weekend with just 21% support of the American population according

to the latest polls.

So it is almost, that's the first thing to bear in mind.

You can't stop trying to make sense of things but it is almost impossible to do when you

are dealing with depravity and or dishonesty.

So I don't know whether Netanyahu was lying through his teeth last June when he claimed

a historic victory which will stand for generations or whether he's lying through his teeth now when

he claims that this action was necessary because as they've been saying for about 30 years

Iran was just moments away from a nuclear capability.

And the second thing that you have to bear in mind at times like this is the fact that

several things can be true at the same time.

I think if you begin with those two blocks of understanding, those two bricks of comprehension,

it's very hard to get a bead, especially in the early days of an assault like this when

the perpetrators, the protagonists are so deeply dishonest and depraved.

And the second thing that you have to bear in mind is that several things can be true

at the same time.

So this act is illegal, it is undertaken without congressional approval, it is unjustified

by tactics and diplomacy.

The real estate moguls that were conducted negotiations with the Iranian regime on Donald

Trump's behalf failed to understand both the intent and the nuance of the Iranian position

and there is no justification for what they have done, short of blood, lust and self-interest.

But it can also be true and indeed it is true that many, many Iranians, particularly members

of the Iranian diaspora, whether they are in other countries by necessity because they

are dissidents or refugees or descendants of refugees or whether they are in Iran itself

will welcome the killing of the Ayatollah for obvious reasons, hideous and murderous regime.

But it's also true that he was 86 years old, he had cancer twice and an awful lot of experts

on the ground cautioned against turning him into a martyr because he was certain to die soon.

Very soon some reports suggest that he didn't seek the sort of security that he could have

availed himself of precisely because he felt that his course would be better served by

martyrdom than by squirreling himself away under a mountain somewhere and surviving this

attack in the same way that he survived the last one.

So several things can be true at the same time.

You can't really trust anything that Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu say and the

killing of the Ayatollah will be welcomed by many Iranians.

It's a great call when we talked about the last time they claimed that they'd undertaken

a historic victory which will stand for generations.

I don't know, maybe in Netanyahu's world, seven or eight months is several generations.

Maybe it's one generation a month if you're signing up to his world view, but I remember

taking an extraordinary call when we talked about the last attacks on Tehran from somebody

who effectively said that if your children are being held hostage, then you don't care

if the person that rescues them is a rapist.

It's like a weird moral hierarchy, isn't it?

I mean, in its purest, in most simplistic form, it would be my enemy's enemy as my friend.

My enemy's enemy is my friend.

I am so keen as a patriotic Iranian to see this regime toppled that I really don't care

who does it.

That's the position and that can be true at the same time as well.

So, so far at nine minutes after term, we're effectively just making a list of things

that can be simultaneously true, even when they seem sometimes contradictory.

But the people I am most reluctant to argue with, and you know, me, I'm rarely reluctant

to argue with anyone, are those people, are people, because that feels to me like a position

that demands skin in the game that most of us contemplating this carnage don't have.

I don't care who is responsible for liberating my country, which, of course, hasn't happened yet,

because the liberation of my country is more important than any other consideration,

whether it be international law or the moral decrepitude of the men responsible for this particular campaign.

And you can extend that too.

I don't care who was responsible for killing the Ayatollah, because I wanted him to be killed,

so passionately and so deeply that I don't care about the identity of the person that's done it.

And when you begin that argument, or when you begin exploring that position,

you lead yourself inevitably to the question that David Petraeus, one of the most successful US soldiers of recent years,

the question that David Petraeus was famous for asking, which was, of course,

tell me how this ends.

And those words became extraordinarily prescient, didn't they?

As the commander of the US 101st Airborne Division, he was talking about Baghdad in 2003,

the soldier asked a reporter called Rick Atkinson of the Washington Post, tell me how this ends.

So for people celebrating the removal of the Ayatollah from the world map,

that question is one that becomes simultaneously impossible to answer and incredibly important,

but not today, tomorrow.

Tell me how this ends, but we can't.

Can you think of the top of your head of a regime, whether theocratic or autocratic,

that was toppled by external pressure and replaced by stability?

That's not a trick question, or indeed a rhetorical one.

I was trying to think earlier, so Libya, essentially French, British and NATO forces,

accelerating the removal from Gaddafi, Libya, descended into hell.

Iraq, it's a downer saying, removed by American and some European forces,

of course, some European leaders demonstrated during the Second Gulf War,

that you do not have to handcuff yourself to a bloodthirsty American president.

The French most obviously achieved that while Tony Blair essentially answered

every question from George Bush, George W. Bush, with the response, how high, how high.

So Iraq saw its regime, its hideous regime toppled by external pressure and descended into hell.

Afghanistan, where much blood was spilled, is still controlled or is once again controlled by the Taliban.

So external pressure brought to bear on a theocratic regime, result, carnage, chaos, hell,

for the people that live there.

There might be other examples, but I can't currently nail a couple.

I cost a vote, kind of, but you can't really talk about cost a vote outside of the context

of the former Yugoslavia and the idea that maybe you can actually,

but the notion that you can somehow replace horrors with pleasantness seems at the very best to be naive.

To be naive.

And then we come to Sir Keir Starmer and his position on this, which is, I think,

I think you'll allow me to say this because I've been fairly clear in my condemnation of what has gone on

even as we acknowledge that it will be welcomed by many people who don't care what happens

tomorrow. They care only about what happens today and they don't care about who is responsible

for a delivering what they wanted because the desire for what has been delivered will outweigh

the disgust at who has delivered it.

And that's fine.

I'd be like that myself, I imagine, if I was an Iranian dissident living in London.

But you come then to the question of what Keir Starmer has done.

And I think, and I'm here to be told otherwise by you, as ever, on this program,

I think it's more nuanced than the initial coverage allows.

So he's getting a kicking in some new space this morning because the announcement that they would be allowing UK bases to be used

in some very specific contexts.

But he's getting a kicking from the people that told you the Iraq war would be an absolute cakewalk.

He's getting a kicking from the same people that told you last June's attack on Iran

was a historic victory that would last for generations.

He's getting a kicking from people who can't help but think whatever the situation, whatever the scenario.

Pick a side first and think about things second.

And that's a, I mean, a terrible thing.

But what Keir Starmer has done is a response to the Iranian response.

Now you tell me whether this sounds like splitting hairs or not to you.

So Iran launches attacks upon the people or the positions responsible for attacking Iran.

And that brings us and or our allies into the firing range.

So he did not allow British bases to be used in the first instance,

whether Diego Garcia or whether the airport base in Norfolk or Suffolk, forgive me.

Lake and Heath, isn't it?

Is it Lake and Heath?

Anyway, he didn't do that in the first instance,

but Iran retaliates to the attacks upon Iran by launching missiles at our allies,

including Jordan and other countries.

And therefore, Starmer concludes that we'll have a listen to what Keir Starmer had to say, actually,

because I think it's worth paying a little bit more than lip service

to what he describes as a limited defensive purpose.

The United States has requested permission to use British bases

for that specific and limited defensive purpose.

We have taken the decision to accept this request,

to prevent Iran firing missiles across the region,

killing innocents of aliens, putting British lives at risk,

and hitting countries that have not been involved.

And so that's what he, that's the pinhead upon which he, the British Prime Minister,

is dancing this morning.

We were not party to the offence, which is probably illegal,

as the defense secretary John Healey sort of danced around repeatedly,

while being interviewed yesterday.

I don't know if the probably in that sentence is redundant, really,

in a moral sense or even in a technical sense,

but of course in a literal sense, you can't conclude that it's illegal

until the work has been done, but of course it doesn't matter

when you're going to war with Benjamin Netanyahu, international law,

is not something that you're going to be particularly worried about.

That rulebook has already been ripped up and set fire to.

But Starmer's dancing on a pinhead whereby he was not party to,

or complicit in, the original attack upon Iran,

but he needs to help defend our allies

and possibly even our own bases from Iran's retaliation.

And I don't think that it indulges me for one moment more.

In terms of radio phonins, which is what we do together every day.

In terms of radio phonins, that is not as fruitful a question

as simply asking, should Kirstama have helped or not?

But I think we owe it to each other to be a little bit more responsible

than to ask the largely pointless but incredibly simplistic question

about whether or not Kirstama should have got involved.

He didn't want to and he didn't get involved

when it was an act almost certainly of international criminality.

But when the target responds by assaulting allies or even British bases,

then can you really sit there and say that a UK Prime Minister

should not be party to attempts to minimise those and even neutralise those attacks?

And that is the nuance.

So we'll talk about this a lot today and we'll come at it from lots and lots of different angles.

But I worry looking at some of the early reactions to that speech from Kirstama.

I worry that we're all in danger of going a little bit undergraduate

or going a little bit footballification.

Is you pick a side and of course if you were cheering last time they secured

the historic victory that will stand for generations,

you're probably lost to morality now.

You're not going to sit there and say, hang on a minute, I can't be in favour of this one

without admitting that I believe the lies about the last one.

I don't know how you process information like this.

But for the rest of us who can recognise new ones

or can at least try to understand things given that it's very hard to do

when the key protagonists are blatant and bare-faced liars.

Kirstama tries to walk a tightrope and that tightrope today involves

not being part of the original, unprovoked and almost certainly illegal attack upon Tehran.

But being party too, the attempts to minimise the consequences of Iran's retaliation

upon our allies and ourselves, which is why he has done the right thing,

even though it feels and to a certain extent sounds like the wrong thing.

Because here is what the alternative would be.

Iran launches missile after missile after missile at our allies in the region

and quite possibly at British bases.

And we are not part of either the defence or the response to those attacks.

Provoked attacks, crucial distinction number 307, provoked attacks.

Iran's attacks upon enemy upon allied positions or upon British bases are provoked attacks.

They are attacks provoked by the United States and Israel.

But what do you do? Do you do nothing?

Do you say to the Americans you cannot use our bases to defend our allies?

Because you've just used them to attack our enemies.

You've just launched an unprovoked attack upon our enemy

so you can't use our bases to defend our allies from their provoked retaliation.

And that's what I mean about it being suboptimal from a phoning point of view

because it's not just pick a side, get your rattle and start waving your scarf in the sky

furiously shouting about how the other lot are awful and you're a lot of fantastic.

We can leave that to the other 80% of the UK media.

What I want you to talk to me about today is whether or not

Keir Starmer has got this right

by distancing himself from the unprovoked and almost certainly illegal attack upon Iran

which enjoys next to no public support in either this country or the United States of America.

But responding to the retaliations from Iran

by contributing to the process of resistance, it's complicated, right?

I mean it's not so complicated that you don't understand it

but it may have needed a little bit of explanation from those of us who are paid to do this kind of thing.

I don't quite see what else he could have done.

To sit on his hands while British allies and even potentially British bases come under attack

or to do what he has done while distancing himself originally from the unprovoked criminality.

That's it, that's the conversation I want to have first up today.

03456060973 is the number that you need.

Hit the numbers now you will get through.

Other angles that we will no doubt get too later in the program, notwithstanding.

Not least the fact of how on earth can you need another war just nine months after a historic victory

which will stand for generations? I don't know.

But I want to know first about our prime minister, our country and our role.

So we're not part of the original attack but we are going to be part of the responses

to the provoked responses to the original attack and that's complicated and it's nuanced

and it's not clear immediately.

It's certainly not binary but I think the prime minister's got it right.

Do you? 03456060973.

It is 24 minutes after 10.

The position is a lot clearer than some of the coverage might allow.

Keir Starmer has announced that the United Kingdom will be party to

U.S. attacks upon the bases from which Iran is launching missiles and Iran is launching

missiles at our allies and potentially it does.

There's one drone attack on the RAF base in Akratiri Cyprus that appears to have been launched

before he announced the latest position for the UK government.

So what else was he supposed to do in this context?

But he's trying in one sense to have his cake and eat it to detach himself from the original

unprovoked illegal attack in conjunction with the genocidal prime minister of Israel

and the morally bankrupt president of the United States of America.

He has not signed up for that but he has signed up for the response to the response

and I don't know whether that sounds to you like splitting hairs or dancing on the

head of a pin or like the reality of a complex and nuanced situation.

And for now and tell you what, tell me otherwise, I am leaning to the second analysis quite heavily.

Much more, for example, than 52.48.

Val is in hope to kick things off. Val, what would you like to say?

Hi James.

So can I just give a little disclaimer?

Of course.

I think I'm not Iranian and I think I'm

I feel really bad for taking up the phone lines when I think it's exclusively people from Iran

or of that extraction should be calling you.

However, not yet.

I mean, hang on a minute.

I mean, you're going to critique the show that I need to justify myself.

This is a question about a British population's opinion on the British prime minister.

We'll have a phone in later in the show about the Iranian response

which will be conflicting and contradictory and complex.

But this is a phone in about what British people or British residents think about the actions

of the British prime minister.

So don't feel bad about taking up a phone line.

Absolutely. Thank you for that.

What I want to say is that from the point of view of somebody

who has lived and released for more than 15 years,

in the UAE, in Dubai and around Dubai in other places,

the situation is too complex to call.

And here, Starmer's response is it's too early to say whether it's appropriate or not

because the situation in the Middle East is extremely complicated.

Well, that will be true when it's over.

I mean, however it is, it's too early to say whether we were right to go into Iraq alongside

George W. Bush. But that's the question that I'm asking is that whether or not with the facts

as we currently know them, because Starmer appears to have made the right call.

It's too early to say.

What, with respectfully, why have you wronged me?

Because I think it's important to point out the complexity and the nuance of the situation.

Yeah, well, I just did that for 20 minutes.

I know. And I wanted to just support you and your, you know, in your knowledge.

Well, I mean, the nature of Western democracy is such that there will be opinion polls

being conducted as we speak. There will be speeches in the House of Commons.

There will be pages of editorials. There will be broadcasters,

including this one offering up there to Peneth and all heading towards a question,

which is whether or not we, or they have done the right thing or the wrong thing.

And I have to, not just for professional reasons, but for very personal reasons as well.

I have to disagree with you completely that it's too early to have a conversation about what is

happening in Iran, and indeed about what Kirstama has elected to do about it.

Maybe we're talking, I don't know, I'd say several,

another few more generations have passed since the next victory that Benjamin Netanyahu will

no doubt be describing later today. I mean, he's in Kingston. I mean, what would you like to say?

Hi, good morning, James. Thank you for taking my calls.

I always, you know, like to talk to you over the phone.

Yeah, firstly, if I had a time, I make, I wanted to say something, you know, killing

89 years or, you know, old man who was already, you know, speak and for a

last couple of months, going to hospital and come back. And one of his beliefs was,

if he's killing, you know, was he's going straight to heaven. I don't know, I don't think he's

very good achievement for United States or Israel. Are you Iranian yourself? Yes, I am.

So this is, I think there's two things that many of us won't be as aware of as you are.

The first is that the faith of, if you like, of the Ayatollah is a huge part of the propaganda

machine in Iran. And he has made that point repeatedly. He craved martyrdom. And you could argue

that he has been handed it by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Exactly. It could be,

it could be his, you know, last wish that in Ramadan, he was fasting and then during the war,

straight in the heaven. And his followers, he believed, they believed, they believed this.

It don't think he's very good achievement. It doesn't show anything. You know, we have to,

and also everyone knows this, you know, the reason who the Israel and United States have

stopped this war is nonsense. Because, you know, we're talking about the country that United

States admire their missiles. They're coping Iranian, you know, drones. The Shah had one

in United States. And then they claiming Iran wanted to have a nuclear weapon and they

couldn't have it. It's a kind of nonsense. And it's a claim that more than 20, 30 years.

They also claimed that they eradicated the capability last June. But let me nod you if I may

towards what Keir Starmer has done. Because your comments about the killing of the Ayatollah

and the causes will discover shortly the killing of pretty much everybody else that the United

States administration had identified as possible favored successors. I talk about it, man.

Keir Starmer is left with the decision now. As attacks are launched from Iran upon UK

allies. And in the case of the RAF base in Cyprus upon UK installations. And he is simply left

with this question, do we support attacks upon the people attacking quotes us and quotes?

Or do we continue to stay out of it? And he is elected to support the people attacking the

people attacking us. Is that the right thing to do with all of your other misgivings about

the bigger picture, not with standing? You know, if Keir Starmer and UK believes that

United States and Israel are allies and the off of friends, okay, why wants their off friends

do something for us? Why this time? You're jumping your jumping ahead again. Starmer is only able

to deal in the moment that we find ourselves in. The US and Israel have attacked Iran illegally

and without justification. But with a result that many of your fellow Iranians will welcome

the toppling of the Ayatollah by no means all of them. And Keir Starmer is watching a drone

make its way towards Akhratiri in Cyprus, a UK RAF base, missiles flying from Iran towards

many of our allies in the region are well-established allies. And he has been asked to help

with the response to those attacks. And he said, yes, I will. Do you approve or disapprove of

that moment, that single decision? I believe that any distillation these will just cause

more human life, more ordinary life in Iran and in the region. And if UK wants to help

any people, any people in Iran or in the region just should ask for de-escalation, not

you know, improving the war. I mean, I said I was going to be reluctant to argue with any

Iranians today. And I am because I don't have family on the ground. I don't have skin in the

game. But I think you'll allow me to say that you sound a little naive. If you think that Keir

Starmer can sit idly by while attacks are made already upon UK bases and somehow prevail upon

people like Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump to de-escalate on what, on humanitarian grounds,

on moral grounds, have you ever encountered these men before that that ain't ever going to happen?

So I'll join you in the ideal world that you describe while politely, perhaps reminding you that

that's not the world that we inhabit. 1033 is the time. The number you need, O3456060973.

The central question, and obviously, as the first two callers have inevitably demonstrated,

you are going to want to go off peace, and I am not minded really to stop you. But I do want to

few more answers to the question regarding what Keir Starmer has done and my increasing conviction

that he has actually got it just about right. But in Hidiya circumstances that will quote,

please end quotes, nobody, because there's nothing here to be pleased about. Dominic Ellis has

your headlines. 1037 is the time, and if things are not currently complex or nuanced enough for you,

the intelligence currently, or the propaganda, because it's hard to tell the difference when the

blood starts being spilled, speaking of which Donald Trump's response to the killing of

three U.S. personnel was blood-curdlingly awful and inappropriate, and I'm almost

minded not to play it to you, because it's so Hidiya's, but it's important that you hear it.

But as if things were not complicated or nuanced enough, the intelligence suggests that the

drone, which was directed at RAF acrothelian cypress, the RAF-based cypress that you just heard

Dominic describe, people being evacuated from. The intelligence seems to suggest that it was

launched before Kirstama announced that UK bases would be used to defend allies against

Iranian attacks. But it landed, or it reached cypress, after he had made the announcement. So

that means it fits both arguments, and you can choose to believe or not believe accordingly,

but the official version of events, and there's no reason to doubt it, because these things are

measurable, is that it was launched before he made his announcement, but landed after he made

his announcement, and his announcement was made, something else that you may have missed. I'm asking

you today to really focus upon something that you probably weren't previously aware of.

Coverage in your newspapers this morning is behind the curve, because most of them went to press

before Kirstama made the decision that he has made. The number of messages I got

when I sat down at 10 o'clock, praising Kirstama for staying out of it, suggests that you hadn't

actually yet got yourself up to date with the very, very latest developments. I did a

sort of double triple quadruple take at my inbox. So what I'm asking you to focus on is something

that you haven't had a great deal of time to process, and in normal circumstances, I'd wait

until tomorrow. But these are not normal circumstances. The British Prime Minister has announced

alongside France and Germany. Something else you may not have been aware of. I didn't

have the E3 group we are known as, and all three members of the E3 group in a joint statement

have described their readiness to take. And I'm going to quote directly here,

necessary and proportionate defensive measures. That's the end of the quote, but the description

continues to protect their interests and those of their allies in the Middle East. So it is a

distinction between attacking Iran for no reason, which is what Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu

have done, and attacking Iranian positions because they are being used to attack us. I use the word

fairly loosely, but it's best described by that phrase, our interests and those of our allies.

And I mean, there's one wrinkle here that I'll share with you. Why does they need our help now?

They didn't need our help to launch the initial attacks. So why do they need British bases for

the second wave? To which I suppose one answer would be that it is not necessarily in the US or

the Israeli interests to dedicate much energies to protecting our interests and those of our allies.

Or that there are two campaigns here. There's the first unprovoked attack upon Iran, and then there

is the response to Iran's response. And I don't currently see how the United Kingdom or France

or Germany can sit idly by while Iran provoked, most obviously, attacks our interests and those

of our allies. And the more I think about it and the more I talk about it, the more hard into my

position becomes. Let me find a text that will put something of a fly in the ointment of my growing

certainty because you shouldn't be certain at times like this. It's dangerous, unless of course

you're the ones making the decisions. Sam's in lead. Sam, what would you like to say?

Oh hi James. Yeah, I think the reason that the American need our air bases is

is that we can't refuse them. It's because we don't have much of a choice to it. We're not a

superpower like America. We're not economically wise. We did refuse. We did refuse. Initially.

Yeah, so we can. But our economy so linked with so dependent on America. That was true yesterday

when we were refusing to help and with the original attack. But Iran have escalated its attacks

and so the calculation by Stammer is based upon events, not upon context. I'd honestly think just

like France did in the Gulf War II, I think Stammer could have stayed out of this. But when Iran

start attacking our interests and our allies, he can't. I don't think it's because we're a sort of

poodle stapled to whoever happens to be in the White House. That's been true in the past. And listen

mate, I could be completely wrong about this, but listening to his speech and looking at the situation

and cognizance of the fact that we are in exactly the same position as France and Germany, I think

this is a tactical decision, not a pragmatic one. I'm not sure that we are in the same position as

France or Germany. Germany, Germany doesn't have air bases all over the world. In a joint statement,

the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany said Iran's reckless attacks endanger both

military personnel and civilians and that they will all take necessary and proportionate defensive

measures to protect their interests and those of their allies. But is America asking Germany to

use their air bases? No, but the willingness to do so is what's been established in this joint

statement, the willingness to be part of the response to the response. But they're not going to ask

Germany for any any any help other. So a Germany saying that doesn't really make any difference,

Germany has really nothing to offer America. So a Germany can say pretty much whatever the like.

We'll have to wait and see, they're vowing defensive action. So you know, that's not merely

allowing facilities to be used. But yeah, you make a powerful point that the UK exposure here,

most obviously in Diego Garcia is unique among our own allies and unique in the context of our

relationship with America. But I still would lead you back to the original refusal. If we were so

in Hawk to whoever's in the White House, we would not have been able to say, no, we're not going

to help you with the original unprovoked attack. But we will play a part in the response to the

provoked response. Oh, man, I don't think you the UK knew the extent of what was going to happen.

No, no, we were on the back foot straight away. We probably this country probably learned what

was happening on the news. Well, the Prime Minister would have said anything to us.

The Prime Minister wouldn't have done. But I don't think the lines of communication or anything

like as fertile and as fruitful as they would be when you haven't got a military action being

undertaken by allies who happen to be a depraved moral bank bankrupt and the genocidal leader of

Israel. So, you know, these are not normal times. But there are elements of it that have to be

normal. And this is where my defensive starmer kicks in in that it is normal for the UK to take

necessary and proportionate defensive measures to protect their interests and those of their allies.

It's 1045. I said I needed a text to give my head a wobble and this is quite a good one.

Starmer has to get involved because we can't trust Netanyahu and Trump to do this themselves,

question mark. Seriously, James, question mark. I don't think I said that, but if that's what

you've taken from what I've said, then it has it has currency. Starmer shot himself in the foot,

arming war criminals and justifying genocide. He's now reaping that commitment and dragging

our armed forces into protecting war criminals. It's sick. If you want to say it's pragmatic in such

a crap situation, but it's utterly disappointing to know that we can be led into this by other people

telling us to shut up and agree. I'm glad I've read that out because I think that's nuts.

I don't think you're reflecting anything that you've heard on this program. It's an entirely

unprovoked and almost certainly illegal attack upon Iran, but it's also a massive provocation

which has resulted in Iranian forces attacking, well at least one UK airbase that we know of,

not to mention numerous allies. And the two questions seem to me to be profoundly different.

Do we join in an illegal attack being undertaken by war criminals? Or do we join in the

response to that attack which involves us and our allies being in the actual firing line? I don't

know. I need you to describe to me what doing nothing would look like. It's 1046.

It is 1048. Let me rattle through some text and then get back to the phones. The US and Israel

writes, Alex have put us all at risk. Now we have to help them. Question mark, we need to grow a

backbone and learn how to say no. But of course our politicians are complicit and compromised.

Again, I disagree, but it may be that I end up in a lonely corner this morning. I've

addressed this just in. The British base in Cyprus was only bombed after Stama agreed to let

the US use it for its illegal war. The intelligences that it was launched before the statement but landed

or was intercepted after or crashed into our AFK territory after the statement had been made.

So there is something that people are going to be wrestling over for months to come. It seems

like you're all forgetting, says Leicester, that Israel and America attacked Iran and Iran is defending

itself. If they'd been in an attack from another country in the region then surely it's legitimate

for them to attack those countries. And Edward says there is no nuance, James. Iran is firing

back at the sites used to attack them. Stama has now justified Iran attacking the UK and quite

sure Trump will be grateful by again claiming that we didn't help at all while simultaneously

increasing tariffs. Win, win. So Jordan, a historic ally of the United Kingdom, intercepting two

ballistic missiles on Saturday according to Reuters and the site of US Air Base. The idea of us

doing nothing while our allies are under attack is one that many people can live with. But I think

it's important to understand what it is that you're endorsing and supporting. I mean I don't

know whether it's a breach of treaty but it's certainly a breach of trust. That is the problem

with having reprobates in charge of entire countries, whether it's Israel or the United States of

America. And that the old frameworks and the old systems are still in play up to a degree or be

at international law has essentially been shot to pieces by these two characters. But the old

network of obligations and treaties still holds. And Stama and the German leader and the French

leader are meeting their obligations, their historical and diplomatic obligations. Unfortunately,

that means, because Netanyahu and Trump are reprobates, that means

edging ever closer to people who've undertaken a war for no moral or legitimate legal reason.

I don't know if I can keep shouting new ones at you. But I do think it's a lot more complicated

than some of those messages allow. Next in Manchester, Nick, what would you like to say?

Morning, Jane. I'm very well. Thanks. How are you? I'm trying to get my head around this.

It is very important. I've come to the conclusion that I think that he's done the right thing.

Yes. But it's still horrible. You don't have to love it or like it or want to cheer it from

the mountain tops. You just have to acknowledge it's the least bad option.

It is the least he's never going to be there's never there's not a good option in this.

And I think to stay out of the initial illegal attack right decision now to defend UK interests,

the right decision that he has to essentially clean up the mess that's been made initially.

And he has to do that by by by intervening by staying out. Well, what were doing nothing

looked like? So we know what doing nothing looks like in the context of the original attack.

But doing nothing now. Can we? Is it splitting even more hairs to say we could intercept the missiles

without attacking the launch pads? We could if you like, I don't know, battle the bullets,

not the guns. And that might be easier to accept on on a sort of moral plane.

Maybe on a moral plane, but I mean, say a UK base gets attacked and people are killed,

you know, touch word. The scrutiny on on Kirsta Amelbe, why didn't he do anything about it?

Yeah, he can't you can't win. The best thing to do is to do something about it, but not

get involved in the the first illegal action, regardless of having. I agree with you because I've

been exploring this position for ages, but while all morning rather, no, no, no, we've been doing

any of this for ages, the only happiness we can but it the what is it? Is it the emotional

argument, the sense, the feeling that we shouldn't be anywhere near any of this is one that I fully

understand and appreciate. I just don't share it. I don't think we have that luxury.

I think I feel like it's hard emotionally. This is what I've been rattling with and this is why

I was kind of aiming and roaring about this this phone in. You're right. Because from an emotional

sense, yeah, of course we should stay away from it. Like from a logic sense, you know, if we'd

have known about this attack, I don't know how much what happens in politics. I'm not going to

speculate, but essentially, I can only imagine that council would probably ask a lot of the

you may have tried to deter a nettinger who and Trump are actually doing this in the first

budget, not many of that luxury. No, that's the missing piece of the jigsaw, isn't it? It's happened

whether you like it or not and no one really likes it except Benjamin Nettinger, Donald Trump,

and their closest or almost enthusiastic and bloodthirsty supporters. As in the context of the attack,

as we've established a plenty of Iranians who will welcome the removal of the Ayatollah,

but it's happened. So, Starma was making two decisions in two different worlds. He was making

the original decision in a world where it hadn't happened, the attack upon Iran and his decision

was, no, we're not going to help. And then he was making a decision, a different decision in a

different world after the attack upon Iran had happened and after Iran had retaliated by targeting

our facilities and our allies. And that is a different question with a different answer.

And that is of course a bit missing bit of the jigsaw, is that there's two different worlds

in which these questions have been asked. The before and after, the attack, and you can agree with

the illegality and the immorality of the original attack, but you cannot argue with the fact that

it's changed the context, the world in which Kirstama answers the same question for the second time

in a completely different world, a world where it has happened and Iran is now attacking

everyone from Jordan and Dubai through to the UK base in Cyprus.

Well, I'm still there. You're not nudging me back, but you're welcome to try on 0-3-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3.

Speaking of what would happen in the event of UK personnel being lost through targeted

missiles or even through later involvement in some sort of military campaign, which I still

think is highly unlikely, all you can do is pray that our Prime Minister would never respond to

the loss of British military personnel in the way that Donald Trump responded to the loss of

three US military personnel. Earlier today, St. Combs shared the news that three US military

service members have been killed in action. As one nation we grieve for the true American

patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. Even as we continue the righteous

mission for which they gave their lives, we pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send

our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely

be more before it ends. That's the way it is likely be more, but we'll do everything possible

where that won't be the case. But America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most

punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against basically civilization.

They have waged war against civilization itself.

He made that speech and indeed he appears to have launched the attacks or given the say so for

the attacks from his holiday resort in Florida. Make it out what you will. It is 1056. And just

in case you're confused about how we open the program and you're thinking hang on, that voice sounds like

that's that that sounds just like this guy. Our President will start a war with Iran because he

has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures

that he's going to get reelected and as sure as you're sitting there is to start a war with Iran.

And here we are starting a war with Iran when his negotiations, whether they'd failed or not,

is actually moot experts suggest that sending his son-in-law in another real estate mogul to conduct

incredibly delicate diplomatic talks with a regime like Iran's was probably not the best available

option. Make that what you will. And of course the Iranian position was that they were about to

signal a major breakthrough. A week of pressure according to the Washington Post from Benjamin

Netanyahu and the leader of Saudi Arabia as well are being cited as things that turn Trump's head.

So his negotiators came away, so it'd be Wicoff and Kushner, wouldn't it? His son-in-law and his

sort of fellow New York property developer. Again, do you ever do, you must do this like I do this,

you probably do it when I do it, is that you say things out loud and there's until you said them

out loud, they haven't resonated properly. His son-in-law and a fellow New York property developer

conducting negotiations with the Iranian regime. Sorry, who again? Who now?

And some of the expert testimony I've seen suggest that they didn't really know what the hell was

going on. They didn't know what to believe, what not to believe, who to trust. And Trump's getting

his reports back from them. They're supremely unqualified people doing the job that would normally

fall to men and women with decades of diplomatic expertise and experience. And then he's getting

bin Salman from Saudi and one ear in Netanyahu from Israel in the other urging him to do what

he's just done, without any real thought for the consequences. Except, of course, the knowledge

that he's got midterms coming up, he's got Epstein questions in danger of finally reaching

critical mass, despite the best effort of the bought and paid for US media to help him avoid all

scrutiny and continue with the lie that he's been completely exonerated. And he's got approval

ratings that are in danger of disappearing through the floor. So he's just rolled dice,

rolled dice, and killed children. It's always the children, isn't it, that the people in support

of military action are keenist not to talk about. Did you know, for example, that it has recently

been acknowledged by the Israeli regime, that the figures provided by, and you have to say this,

of course, by the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza have now been accepted by Israel.

All of the people who would say to you for most of the last couple years, all the way up,

but you can't take those figures seriously because they come from Hamas. They've gone very,

very quiet, haven't they? Three minutes after 11 you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC.

I think this is the right question to be asking, albeit that it's one that is only emerging

this morning, or late last night. So it's not one that most of your media would have been

directing you towards, because they still live by newspaper times and newspaper deadlines. So

some of your newspapers are still full of condemnations of Kirstaam, I think, for not doing more to

help with the original unprovoked and almost certainly illegal attacks. And there will all be

people that were pro-Irak. Well, it's mad, isn't it? This inability ever to pause and reflect and

to admit wrongness. Almost all of the problems that this country has and continues to face are caused

by people refusing or failing to acknowledge that they got it wrong last time. You know that I

like to talk about the four donkeys of the Kropopoulips, the four events or individuals that have

inflicted more damage upon these islands than anybody since the Luftwaffe. Boris Johnson, Liz

Truss, Brexit and austerity. You find me someone who was in favour of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss,

Brexit and austerity, who is an also in favour of this illegal attack upon Iran. And probably also

in favour of the genocide in Gaza, undertaken by Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.

And I'll find you a very rare creature indeed. It is as if they all go hand in hand. These

positions of what would you call them? What sort of weapons, grade, ignorance and idiocy?

Determination. It's our side. It's our two. We are on the side of illegal wars. Well, how did the

last one work out for you? How in favour of Iraq? Well, you want us to go to 1 to 10? Yeah, we definitely

did the right thing. Well, no, I don't say that now. It's like Brexit. I just prefer not to talk

about it. It's time we moved on. Why are people still talking about the Iraq war? Why are people

still talking about the referendum? It was a result. Just deal with it. Things have gone

appallingly badly, but it doesn't mean I was an idiot for telling you it was going to go brilliantly

well. It says about 80% of my profession in the context of Iraq and Brexit. And they're the same

people saying, yeah, of course we should be on the side. So it can be better not coming out without

any understanding of international law whatsoever. And claiming that Kirstama didn't join in and

illegal attack upon Iran because he's frightened of upsetting Muslim voters.

I do know, I spoke to a senior Tory who is a Muslim a few years ago. Said of us, he

have checked. She said it on the record so I can tell you. And she told me that particularly

what was going on in her own party and what was going on in the country more broadly was making

her for the first time in her life, consider where she wanted to live. Now you have the leader of

the conservative part. There are still Muslim conservative MPs on that. You now have the leader

of the conservative party claiming that by dint of being a British Muslim, then you would be

somehow on the side of the Ayatollah as opposed to all of the people in the Middle East or all of

the people of the Muslim face. It can be simultaneously opposed to the Ayatollah and opposed to

illegal military action and opposed to war and opposed to genocide. But you can hold several

thoughts in your head. Well, not if you came, he made it, obviously. But for the rest of us,

we can hold several thoughts in our head at the same time. And the thought today of the two key

thoughts in the first part of today's program, before we get on to specific Iranian responses

to what has gone on perhaps or Iranian immigrant perspectives on what has gone on. I fell into

the trap there, didn't I? I said expat. It's also the word being used to describe all the people who

move to Dubai to avoid paying taxes in this country who are now calling upon the British taxpayer

to pay to get them out and do buy and bring them home. I'd listen, I have nothing but sympathy for

anybody caught up in this hellscape. But if you've been using your Dubai apartment to post nonsense

on social media about how unsafe London is, well, I was about to say I imagine you're having a

bit of a think about things this morning, but of course they're not. They're not having a bit of

a think about these fighting age people living in Dubai now effectively being turned into refugees

as they call upon the British taxpayer who they've sought to avoid to get them back to Britain.

And they won't be reflecting at all upon why on earth they spent their time claiming that our

capital city wasn't safe while they're now staring down the barrel of a loaded Iranian missile

launcher idiots. But they will be mostly people who are also in favor of Brexit. Boris Johnson

lives truss. They're a very brexity bunch for a lot of these ex-pats. Sorry, immigrants who've moved

these fighting age men and women who've moved to Dubai to avoid paying British taxes. I'm an EA,

but these people are not capable of reflection. They're certainly not capable of reversal or retreat,

so they'll just carry on shouting from the rooftops. We have to be better than this.

We have to be better than this. And even if the rest of the world continues in their

ludicrous binary entirely in appropriate tribal non-senses, like Kenny Baid and not claiming

that British Muslims are political loyalties are swayed by conflicts in the Middle East,

not the British national interest. How can it be in the British national interest to join another

illegal war? Did you learn nothing from the last one? Answer, no, you didn't learn anything from

the last one. But we have to be better than this. You have to be cognizant of facts and the facts

include two things can be true at the same time. Not supporting the illegal attack upon Iran.

Correct. Supporting responses to Iran's attacks upon our base, our allies and ourselves.

Also correct. I don't think it's complicated, but I fully accept that I might be.

Not in a lonely corner of this conversation, but certainly in one that you've hadn't properly

established the existence of before you started listening to this programme this morning.

Paula is in Gainesborough. Paula, what would you like to say?

Oh, good morning, James. Sorry, I'm suddenly very nervous now that you've been listening to you for a long time.

It's only me. It's only you. I've never wanted to call in before, but I do feel really

passionately that Starma is doing actually the only things he can do. I think as a Labour prime

minister, he'd have to be really sensitive to being involved in an attack in the Middle East,

post-Iraq and how people feel about that still. I live in Lincolnshire. It's a very R.A.F. heavy

counter. We've got bases everywhere. In fact, I'm going to work shortly. I run a support group for

people who are socially isolated and among them are former R.A.F. staff who are experiencing PTSD.

This is not a, it wouldn't be an easy call for a Labour prime minister to make.

No, I don't think it would. No, and also the American government, let's be honest, they're not

the best allies in the world because they kind of say, look, you're with us, you're against us.

There's no middle ground with them. So I don't think Starma...

That's in normal times. When you haven't got a super-annuated psychopathic toddler in

charge of things, it's only about last month. Was it that he claimed we hadn't done anything

in Afghanistan? We hadn't played a meaningful role. He insulted our ward dead. He literally

insulted our ward dead in regards to Afghanistan. So if it's true at the best of times that America

can be an unreliable ally, it's true with an ever now. I'm going to sit later today with people

who were in Afghanistan and are still suffering as a consequence of it. So, you know, I don't,

I mean, amongst ourselves, we call him the Tangerine Tantraum. We don't, we don't like him,

but he is the julie-elected American president. He's made a decision to do something.

Whatever conversations may have had between Downing Street and Washington or wherever it was

decided, they probably had to say that we can't join you. We've got our own public to manage.

We can't do this, but we will be there with you for the defensive stuff. I think they've had to

be tactical here. And when you're dealing with someone that's gone, gone to bomber region anyway,

no matter what you do or say, and isn't cognitive of all the nuances, like, you know, the other

toll of being a very sick man, who's probably like you to die soon anyway, therefore why off of him

martyrdom? Yeah. I don't think any of that was factored in. I think they just did it. And I,

honestly, Oh, it can't be absolutely agree with you. Go on. I can't believe I'm saying this

because it's never occurred to me before, but I feel quite sorry for Kirsten on the today. Yeah.

I understand why he was in a vice. I don't think he could, he couldn't, he's not going to be right

whatever he does, but as a prime minister of this country, we expect him to protect our military

personnel and all the expats and holiday makers that are in that region. We expect him to do it

and we expect him to stand with our allies if they come under attack, which of course now we

want has reciprocated. Now our allies are coming under attack. It's a different, it's a different

scenario. And if you felt sorry for him before, Paula, you're going to feel sorry for him now because

Donald Trump has just given an interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he's attacked Kirsten

for taking too long to change its mind and allow the US British bases to, sorry, and allow the US

to use British bases to target Iran. And I mean, here's a line that everything with Trump, I mean,

the fact that he gave that speech and indeed these orders from his holiday resort in Florida is

just extraordinary. You go to the war room, don't you go to the situation, the least you can do

is do your job in your office when you're sending people to die on foreign soil, but not if you're

Donald Trump. But this line here, he says, he's told the Telegraph, it sounds like he was worried

about the legality. Oh, perish the thought that a world leader should be worried about the actual

legality of, for example, and I know you'll be aware of this, but some people perhaps won't be

bombing a girl's school in southern Iran, 165 dead already according to state media. He was worried

about the, as if that's a bad thing. And Trump's talking to his audience there, he's probably

talking to Camille Badernot. Oh, look at Keir Starmer worried about legality when we should

just wait in there and kill as many people as possible without any thought for the consequences.

So yeah, I understand why you feel sorry for him. I do because a president who's, you know, kind of

got a loudspeaker to his mega base, who I would imagine, you know, they're more kind of, let's not

have bureaucrats, let's talk more action. You know, I get that that's how they view things, but in

the Middle East, there are so many nuances. There are so many different ways this could play out

that just a little bit more caution was probably the better option. Unfortunately, that horse is

bolted now. We have to deal with, I'm a pragmatic woman. We have to deal with the reality in front

of us, not what we wish we had. We now have a bit of a mess. Our prime minister is doing the only

things he can do while signaling to everyone because he can't publicly come out and criticize Trump,

not at this moment. But they can do it. They can do it in terms, can't they? They can say things

like the UK is not at war with Iran. You can send a secretary of state for defense to appear on

a Sunday morning television and not answer the question of whether or not this is legal or illegal,

whereas of course, you know, the obvious answer would be to say that it was legal to duck that

question repeatedly, as John Healy did, leaves the door wide open for the conclusion that the UK

government thinks that it is illegal. It does. And I think it's, I think they're signaling, as you

say, because I don't think they can actually say it outright. Not at this moment in time,

perhaps in a few days time, I have no idea. I'm not part of a government never has been.

I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes, what discussions are being made about which

basis things can be launched from so and so forth. There might be some very delicate stuff going

on. And if they come out publicly and say, actually, we think this is a wrong, they might jeopardize

something else. Maybe they're over more barrels than I realize. And I wouldn't be surprised if

they were. Do you know, this is from Bob while you were talking. So James, why is it that the

callers who describe themselves as nervous are invariably the most thoughtful callers you get?

And he's got a point, actually, as Bob, that the official version of events, such as it is,

is that Britain had denied the US permission to conduct strikes from bases such as Diego Garcia

and RAF Fairford, citing international law. And then on Sunday night, as you have said, when the

situation has changed, he revealed, or he said in a statement that we'll listen to again shortly,

that he would allow the US access to Diego Garcia for specific and limited defensive purposes.

So it's the difference between attacking a country without justification in law and attacking

a country that's attacking our allies or our positions. And put it like that, boil it right

down. Now, don't want to oversimplify things, but at the very least, as you've highlighted,

Paula, it's an obviously very different question that he's answering, both before and after the

original, probably illegal attack upon Iran. And some people are determined not to see that.

They just don't want to, whether they're saying he's done too little too late, they're ignoring

that he's done a completely different thing from the thing they wanted him to do first. And when

they, when the other people in the other camp at the other extreme, and this is why you feel sorry

for him, because he's going to get it from both sides, saying he shouldn't even have done this,

then you would be sitting idly by while not only your allies and your own people potentially

came under attack, but France and Germany, your closest allies in this kind of context,

have both pledged support for defensive actions. What else could he have done?

Nothing. I don't, I honestly think that because this is, this has all gone off, it's happening.

Everybody now has to just fall into line, sadly. And, and at least be doing defensive things,

even though they didn't want to be in this position in the first place. We are dealing with,

you know, the biggest currently, the biggest military in the world that's decided to take action.

We might not like it, we might not agree with it, but it's already happening now. The best

that ourselves and our European allies can do is defend as much as we can, protect our people

where we can. Yeah, see what you're doing. See where the chips fall, which I don't like.

No, no, you don't have to like it. That's the point, isn't it? But what you're doing quite brilliantly,

you're highlighting the difference between, and I understand why some people can't come with you,

or me on this journey, but the, the idea that you're getting into bed with Trump on another

illegal war versus the idea that you are simply showing allies ship with allies in the Middle East

and maximizing protection of our own bases, but, but you can't really separate the two. You and

I can separate it intellectually or emotionally, but we're still watching the Prime Minister get

into bed with Trump's activities in the Middle East, if not all of them, then some of them.

And that is what many people are going to struggle to do. I think wrongly, but, you know, who knows

where we'll be in in a month's time, or six months time, or nine months time, which is roughly the

time scale between Benjamin Netanyahu claiming that he'd secured a massive victory that would be

relevant for generations. The last time they attacked Iran, and then fast forward to this weekend,

when apparently it was such an unsuccessful attack, the last one that they had to do it all over

again. Twenty past eleven is the time. O three four five six oh six oh nine seven three is the

number that you need to add to this conversation. Ninety minutes after eleven is the time.

It is twenty one minutes after eleven. Quite a few of you picking up on that point, and I have to

remind myself that you are not listening to the program from the very start right through to the

bitter end. You come and go, you stay, you zone in, you zone out, you're probably got better things

to do. God forbid, can't imagine what, but the point that I think is at the center of any

contemplations of the current situation is that claim last June by Benjamin Netanyahu that they

had scored a quote, historic victory, which will stand for generations. After a twelve day war

on Iran, less than a year later, he's doing it again, and nobody really seems to be pointing out

that those two things can't really sit alongside each other with honesty, can they, or transparency,

either he was lying then, or he's lying now. And then you add to that the reports that the

Israeli Prime Minister and the Saudi Crown Prince have been urging this activity, this action on

Trump for the best part of a week, and you factor in that the people he sent to conduct potentially

crucial negotiations with the Iranian regime were his son-in-law, who's a sort of glorified

landlord, a property developer, and another friend from his days as a property developer, they're

the men that were sent to handle this. I mean, it's a bit like sending Mr. Blobby to cut the wires

on a bomb to diffuse a bomb, or sending, I don't know, Homer Simpson to conduct incredibly,

this idea that because you've made an awful lot of money in property development, you must be

possessed of a unique set of skills, or you must somehow be possessed of skills that can be

translated into other areas, to the exclusion of experience and expertise. I mean, I told you

it was brexity, but that's the definition of brexit in many ways. Let's ignore the people who

know what they're talking about and just let the people with the loudest voices and the most

ill-founded confidence take charge of everything. So the property developers, the glorified landlords

that he sends to conduct nuclear negotiations with the Iranian regime, a hideous regime,

make no mistake, but one which would through self-protection and self-preservation have been

sitting around that table in the hope of finding some sort of off-ramp for what subsequently occurred

is idiocy for the ages, but how much of what we talk about on the program every day

will go down. One's things have finally returned to some semblance of normality. We'll go down as

idiocy for the ages, 24 minutes after 11 is the time. What else could Starma have done? We'll

probably move on to some other questions. It's shortly, but I don't know that anyone yet has told me

honestly what would have happened if he hadn't done this. So we know what would have happened if

he hadn't given permission for the US to use Diego Garcia and R.A.F. Fairford on the original

probably illegal attack upon Iran because we saw it happen. They did it without us.

Last night he said he would allow the US and I'm just going to play you that again actually,

because again you may not have been listening since the beginning. He said he would allow

but in a very specific and limited way, you don't have worries about breaching international law

if you are attacking missile installations that have been used to attack others. So completely

different proposition from launching an unprovoked, militarily unprovoked attack upon Iran.

So they will be confident that the law is on their side on this occasion even as they stress that

they are not at war with Iran or they are not in lockstep with everything else that has gone on.

I just worry that people want their wars in black and white, don't they? People don't want to say

well that was justified but that wasn't just that people just want to cheer or boo.

And that's true across the political spectrum I'm afraid.

A plenty of people who want to cheer the bloodshed in the Middle East as long as it's only

Arabs getting murdered will be condemning Keir Starmer for the failure to support the

originally illegal attack and not praising him for there's not seeing the difference.

And plenty of people who will always boo Western interventions in matters Middle East and will

be attacking Keir Starmer from the other end of the pitch. They will be attacking him for moving

for changing when the facts change. So the man can't win which doesn't mean he's wrong.

And on this occasion I don't think he is. I have a little listen to a small part of his speech

yourself because I do think it works as a corrective to much of the coverage.

The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific

and limited defensive purpose.

We have taken the decision to accept this request to prevent Iran firing missiles across the

region, killing innocents of aliens, putting British lives at risk and hitting countries that have

not been involved. So I don't know how you can argue with that actually what I do because you are.

But I don't know how you can argue with that. And that's what I'd like you to do if you want to.

Is tell me what would happen in the event of Starmer not having done what he has done.

As missiles fly into Jordan, into Dubai, into other allies in the area, as missiles are

a drone makes its way across continents towards the RAF base on Cyprus and the UK Prime Minister

is portrayed as not only not doing anything about it but also as refusing to help our other allies

do something about it. A weird one. A little illustration of my own ignorance there where I

threw it through the word Arabs casually into a conversation about Iranians which is of course

in an inaccurate description. 27 minutes after 11 and it is two Iranians that will probably turn

shortly for specific perspectives on what's going on. And potentially answers to that question

famously posed by General David Petraeus in the early days of Gulf War II. How does it end?

How does this end? Before that though, Sam is in Brahmsgrove in Worcestershire. Sam, what would

you like to say? Hiya, how are you? Very well, what's on your mind?

Yeah, I mean, I've got family and friends in every single country except the weight that has been

impacted by this. Really? And yes, everything goes around. My brother is in Qatar. Well, yeah,

my brother is in Qatar. I've got cousins in Bahrain. My in-laws are in Lebanon. My brother in

law lives in the firm one-total firm and department in Dubai. Is he alright? He's alright, he's

alright. That's the one that got hit. That's the one that got hit for people wondering why you've

mentioned it. Yes, that's the one that's got hit. I go there every every Christmas actually and

we stay with them. And so I've got friends and family hugely invested. I lived in Dubai for eight

years. I don't agree with you that the British people did send their money back home because we

did and all of my friends did. I'm just pointing out a lot of people who've moved there are

literally quite explicit about the fact that they've done so to avoid paying tax back in the UK.

That doesn't mean that I was maligning you or your family but that's what most of the recent

departures in this country. They've done it for two reasons. They lie about London not being

safe and they don't want to pay tax because they don't think that they benefit from taxes until,

of course, someone starts firing missiles at them. Yeah, no, I was I was always wanting to come

back and so very well, very very very much invested and I can tell you people like me who are in

the UK who do have family in France say actually Britain needs to stay out of this. And my journey

started in the Middle East after university I moved to Jordan and I worked in the high hotel which

was bombed by terrorists attack after the Iraq war. And no sooner did one bomb land in Iraq did

that all the hotels become full of oil companies. So we all knew that was about. And here we are

again. This is Israel's war and it's not British, you know, Britain's war. It's Israel's war.

And on the 17th of February, Nassaddi Bennett, I think that's his name. Yeah, he started talking

about bombing Turkey. So, you know, I'm not across that. I'm not, I'm not across that. But I just,

I mean, it was Israel's war in conjunction with Donald Trump who probably wouldn't be doing this

if the Epstein files weren't continuing to cause such to garner such coverage at home and abroad.

But it, but it ceases to be Israel's war or Israel and America's war when Iran responds by

attacking the positions that you've already described. But then we have a duty, we have a duty

surely to minimize those responses, no? So obviously, we don't want any civilians to be hit whether

in Dubai or in Iran. I mean, thank you for mentioning that school. I mean, it broke my heart to see,

to see children. I mean, what's what have they done in this world to deserve that? What have they

done? So, obviously, our under, because I'm watching some Arabic media, our understanding,

some of the media is saying that the American bases are being used and people probably didn't

know this, that Jordan has American bases. Dubai has American bases, Abu Dhabi. Like, you know,

it's, it's a very, if you think about it, it's very, very strange that all these countries are

allowing, allowing America to kind of control some kind of the military in their country. It is an

situation to have that every, one of those countries has American bases. So, American bases

are being targeted because the American bases are being used to target Iran. So, what are they,

and obviously, they're an easier target, because Israel's not very strong defense system.

The Iron Dome is a very strong defense system. So, of course, if you're going to be sending

missiles from a target in Dubai, then you're making a distinction between an American base

and an ally of the UK. And if the American base is on the soil of our ally, then it's an attack

upon our ally. Even though it is simultaneously an attack upon America or an American base,

when Starmer has successfully disassociated himself from America and Israel's probably illegal

attack upon Iran, I don't think you have that luxury of saying. He's not attacking our ally,

he's attacking an American base. When the American base, and God forbid there be any collateral

damage, is on, is on an ally territory. And that's without even bringing the RAF base in Cyprus

into the conversation, which has already, we believe, been targeted.

Yes, I mean, that obviously needs the response.

And that's what he's done. That is definitely a British problem, but I just feel that why are they

letting them use their country? You know, why are they letting them use the Israel's very close?

Well, because they want to. Why do they have to, because they want to, they're sovereign,

they're sovereign territories and they provide, they, but they would claim if you had the luxury

of chatting to the king of Jordan about it or, or, or, or, or other Middle Eastern. I like the king

of Jordan. I really like the king of Jordan. I don't think he's not. I don't think they're using

the base. What's happening in Jordan is very different, because in Jordan, you have the missiles

going to Israel and they're shooting them down before they get to Israel. Yeah, cool. There is some,

there is some, some, well, they've been, they've been deaths and casualties in Israel as well.

So no, no system is completely foolproof. No, but Israel is probably the best in the world.

No, but school of, there are, there are people in Jordan saying, why are you shooting them down

and putting our lives at risk as Jordanians? Aren't we number one, too?

That's the things for us. Obviously, something, a problem there as well, you know, because of the

debris that's coming out of the sky in Jordan. But doing nothing is not, doing nothing is,

and I think to answer, I don't know whether you were being rhetorical a moment ago, but the,

I mean, a large reason, presumably, for US military presence in the Middle East is to,

well, they would say, to sustain stability. God, I'm so late for the news. How dare you make

me so late for the news, Sam? I can't believe it. You've got me so engaged in this conversation,

but also to protect the oil industry. We'll talk again, because given that extraordinary back

story that you shared, I want to know how you ended up in Bromsgrove, just up the road from where

I grew up. But I haven't got time to ask you now. Simon Marx on the way shortly. Time now for

the very latest headlines with Dominic Ellis. 1138 is the time. This may seem a little

inappropriate, but I think I'm going to have to go down to the cellar and bring up something

that we haven't used on the program for ages. I was not expecting this to happen on a day as

potentially potentious as this one. Good Lord, watch his back, just below the dust off the top.

Sorry. Donald Trump has described the Diego Garcia deal that the UK government was essentially

compelled to conduct as a consequence of a variety of issues, most obviously international law,

but also with a side order of Brexit. Donald Trump has described that deal as, and I quote,

a very woke thing. I mean, people still using that word. Obviously, it has become a word that

very right-wing people use as a pejorative or a negative when they can't actually give you any

real reasons why something is bad. So you just call it woke, and you'll have people like Dick

Little John at the Daily Mail cheering like, yeah, it's woke. What is wrong with it? Don't

know. It's woke down with woke. It became originally, I suppose, a tactic with which you could

oppose people who were opposed to racism. So if you were anti-racist, then the way to be anti-anti-racist

was to call those people. Well, look at them all woke over there complaining about people who were

racist. So woke just became a synonym really for not racist. And then it expanded into all the

areas that the far right can't win arguments on, except, of course, by shouting down whoever it is

they're arguing with. So why is the Diego Garcia so bad, Mr. President? Well, it's woke.

Honestly, the greatest minds. It's a woke deal. That's why it's bad. And people will now use this.

I mean, I'll start the clock. See who the first Daily Mail columnist is to describe it as woke,

probably Dick Little John could be some of the others. And remember, he's the man that wants

the United Kingdom to be governed by Donald Trump instead of Kirstama and who basis his views

of the United Kingdom when he's not writing his columns from Florida on 25-year-old episodes of

the bill as I explained to you on Friday. You'll have to rewind radio or download the podcast

to find out what on earth I'm talking about now because I can't explain it again. But there it is.

The return of woke watch because Donald Trump has elected to describe the Diego Garcia deal as woke.

Luke Watch. Oh boy. And there's the thing, you see. This is why our earlier caller described or

articulated sympathy for Kirstama. That's a tricky one. I grant you. But he has now come under

attack from Donald Trump. Even as people who I am loosely going to describe as being of the left

will be attacking him for sucking up to Donald Trump. There's a symmetry here that's in other

circumstances it would be delicious, wouldn't it? But there's nothing delicious about war. But Kirstama

has correctly and successfully disassociated himself from the original act of almost certainly illegal

while recognizing the necessity of defending UK interests and allies from Iran's response to

that reckless and probably illegal war. They're two completely different things. So Kirstama can

now be getting it in the neck from Donald Trump for not being sufficiently supportive of his

latest depravities and be getting it in the neck from domestic critics for being too supportive

of Donald Trump's latest depravities. He is getting it for not being supportive enough and for

being too supportive. Now whether or not this is more evidence that he's not very good at politics,

I don't know. But it is the correct diplomatic course to have pursued. Could he have addressed it

more directly in his speech? Could he have pointed out what we've spent 90 minutes pointing out on

this program? I don't know, maybe. But if you need an illustration of how hard it is and how dangerous

the people who pretend that it's not hard are, you'll struggle to find a better one than this.

You'll struggle to find a better one than this. Kirstama getting it in the neck for Donald

Trump for not being sufficiently supine, getting it in the neck from domestic critics for being too

supine. And then Kemi Badernot, bless her. Coming out and attacking Kirstama for not breaking

international law this weekend. Have a little listen to this. I think it's interesting from the

UN Nuclear Watchdog Chief. That's the IAEA, I think. I turn into Donald when I start trying to

remember the initials of the International Atomic Energy Authority, IAEA. Anyway,

here it is, which I think we found evidence of Netanyahu and his cronies claiming for the best

part of three decades that Iran was about 10 minutes away from developing a nuclear bomb. Again,

why would you listen to the experts? Why would you listen to the people with expertise and

experience when you can just send your son-in-law into battle on your behalf? But here is Rafael

Grossi, the UN's nuclear watchdog chief. This is my evaluation. It's an evaluation that is based

on the fact that Iran has a very big ambitious nuclear program that we do not have at the

accesses that we should have. At the same time, I have said, I said it last year, before the June

12th day war, we don't see a structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons. So that is the

assessment of the agency. Then, of course, countries have either other information or political

considerations, which are not for me to validate, as I said, or invalidate.

So there it is. I mean, not only did they lie essentially about the capabilities of Iran in the

first place, they then lied about having destroyed them. That was just last June, June of last year.

I kid you not, you'd think that this was parody, wouldn't you? When Benjamin Netanyahu declared a

historic victory, which will stand for generations, and then less than a year later, they're back,

too, because they hadn't actually removed the threat that didn't exist. So they have to go back

now and remove the threat that's still, according to the head of the IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog,

the threat that still doesn't exist. I suppose every glimmer of good news in the current

landscape is to be welcomed. Simon Marx, after this. It is 1148, and well, it is our duty really,

on days like this, to try to wade through the misinformation and propaganda, the tribalism,

and the binary nature of much commentary and coverage, never more so than when you have a man as

ridiculous and hideous as Donald Trump in the White House. It is to the United States that we

turn next with that in mind. Simon Marx or US editor is there. I mean, start wherever you want,

Simon. I suppose we should begin with the appetite among the American people for what Donald Trump

has done over the weekend. Well, I think we should be absolutely clear, James. Donald Trump has not

prepared the American public for this war in any way. I mean, they only saw him twice over the weekend,

and they had to be up at 2.30 in the morning on Saturday if they wanted to see him the first time,

or find it suddenly when they woke up on Saturday morning to be rather surprised by the fact that

the country was going to war in conjunction with Israel against Iran. So in that first overnight

message, Donald Trump talked about major combat operations being underway against Iran,

made completely contradictory remarks instructing the Iranian people on the one hand to rise up

and take power into their own hands, and the time for action is now, except, of course, he then told

them that the time for action was not now because he told them they needed to stay indoors,

because it was too dangerous to go outside, because bombs were raining down on them.

Then we didn't see anything of him until last night, when he was departing Mar-a-Lago and heading

back to Washington, DC. He did engage in a handful of individual telephone conversations with

hand-picked reporters here in Washington during the course of the day, in which again he offered

completely contradictory storylines regarding the purpose, duration, intent of this war,

and gave no indication that he's got any plan for the day after. I mean, he didn't even have a

plan for the day of, much less the day after. But then last night, before he left Mar-a-Lago,

he did appear on camera in a pre-recorded series of comments, and first of all,

broke the news to the American people that they had already heard from US Central Command,

that the first American fatalities had taken place in the theatre. Let's listen to that.

Earlier today, St. Combs shared the news that three US military service members have been killed

in action. As one nation we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate

sacrifice for our nation. Then he told the American people that while he can't say how long

this war is going to last, and in comments to a reporter, he said it might go on for a month

or longer, they need to brace themselves for more American fatalities. Sadly, there will likely be

more. Before it ends, that's the way it is likely be more, but we'll do everything possible

when that won't be the case. That's the way it is, and the president went on to insist that his

war in Iran is right and justified. These actions are right and they are necessary to ensure that

Americans will never have to face a radical bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear

weapons and lots of threats. And that was it. In terms of comments last night, he arrived back at

the White House, walked into the building, didn't say anything to reporters. As we now know, he's given

that unbelievable interview. I mean, except it's not unbelievable. We should be pricing all of this

in now to the Daily Telegraph once again, fleeing the Prime Minister, fleeing the UK, even as

British service personnel are putting their lives on the line for his war of choice in Iran.

But he is facing incoming here in the United States, and it's coming James from his own core

mega supporters, America first adherents, who are overwhelmingly telling him that they not only have

no appetite for this war, but they believe that this is a new turn, a massive new turn by an

American president. They elected to disentangle America's military from forever wars and far off

entanglements in the Middle East about which the American public know very little. But this is a

president who's just done nothing to condition the environment here to support this. And now we're

seeing I think three US fighter jets that may have been brought down in Q8 by friendly fire.

There's no evidence here that the American public has the appetite for any of this, much less for

a conflict that could last for a month. So here's the $64,000 question. And why do you think he's

done it? I mean, as you and I have discussed within the last week and weeks prior to that,

this is a man in need of distraction, in urgent need of distraction. I mean, he's got fresh

questions about the Epstein files, besieging the White House. He's got the Supreme Court

incinerating the tariffs that lie as the key pillar, not just of his trade, but also of his foreign

and national security policies. He's got record low numbers in the approval ratings. And he's got

an Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia

saying, come on mate, we've got to do this. Let's give it a go. And it may well be that the

Israelis outplayed him by launching the first air strike and essentially forcing his hand. I mean,

if you listen to what Omani negotiators who had been shuttling between the US and Iranian

delegations in Geneva up until only Thursday of last week say they indicate that the Iranians had

significant ground and that the possible compromise existed for negotiators as they said they were

doing to take back to their respective capitals over the weekend to try and advance. But then whether

it was the Israelis simply saying, right, we're going in right now and we're killing the Supreme

Leader because we've got the opportunity. Donald Trump being cajoled into joining that or

enthusiastically joining it, seeing that he had an opportunity here to play geopolitical 52

card pickup and hope without any kind of a plan that may be the brute force of the American

military and the Israeli militaries might deliver him a better situation that he's been in

previously in Iran. I mean, I think it's for all of those many reasons that he decided to give

this a go. What then would given, as you've established, that the justification for it is

at the very least paper thin. The support for it is almost nonexistent. What would success look

like from his point of view? Well, I think it's also important to underscore James that the legality

in America is skating on the thinnest possible ice. There is a law. It was enacted in 1981 by

President Ronald Reagan that says American elected officials must not engage in the assassination

of foreign heads of states or other foreign government officials. There's no way of looking at

what happened on Saturday in Iran and saying that the United States wasn't either directly involved

or clearly playing a significant supporting role in orchestrating the assassination of the Supreme

Leader. For whom, of course, we in the West have absolutely no sympathy given his track record

of brutality inside Iran and Iran's track record of terrorism and nefarious acts on the world stage

as well. But on the face of it, that action clearly was a breach of American law and there's no

justification that the Americans are putting forward for any of this under international law in

the same way as they ran roughshod over international law with the attack on Venezuela back in January.

What does success look for him? I mean, in his description, a polyanna world in which the Iranian

people, the families of demonstrators whose loved ones were cut down in their tens of thousands

by Iran's Revolutionary Guard only within the last few weeks. Those people go out onto the streets,

put flowers into the rifles of the Revolutionary Guards, engage in a chorus of Kumbaya and say,

let's all get together. Us, the security forces, the Revolutionary Guard, the Army will get together

and will form a new government. I mean, that's the plan and it's clearly not workable.

No, I mean, I feel like Donald Trump's felt contemplating known unknowns and unknown

unknowns and known-nones. But I mean, that question, as you will know, General David Petraeus

posed it back in 2003 in Baghdad. Tell me how this ends. I'm going to play you a clip. Actually,

I'm going to play you two. The first one you will be very familiar with, but I presume and you

can tell me afterwards that this is going to be what's troubling the base. Our president will start a

war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective.

So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected and as sure as you're sitting there

is to start a war with Iran. I mean, talk about projection, but more

interestingly, Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Senator, who is one of the most, how could we put

it, enthusiastic cheerleaders of Donald Trump, was asked to really... I mean, I know you all have

heard this, but my listeners haven't heard it yet. Moving forward, in a social media post,

Sunday President Trump wrote this quote, hopefully the IRGC and police will peacefully merge with

the Iranian patriots and work together as a unit to bring back the country to the greatness it

deserves. Is hope the plan for the future of Iran? No, the future of Iran is going to be determined

by the Iranian people. The new Iran, whatever it is, if for this a cleric or a representative

democracy, our goal is to make sure it cannot become, again, the largest state-sponsored terrorism.

That's a win for us. Is there a plan to make sure that happens, Senator? Is there a plan

does the president have a plan to guarantee that that happens? No, it's not his job or my job to do

this. How many times do I have to tell you? Our job is to make sure Iran is no longer the

largest state-sponsored terrorism to help the people reconstruct a new government, no boots on

the ground. We don't own, you know the side there, you break it, you own it, I don't buy that one

bit. It's an America's interest to make sure the IOTO is dead. He's dead. Who's job is it to have a plan?

What he's saying there is our job is to scream fire in a crowded theater and it's up to the

theater goers and the actors and maybe a little bit of theater management then to figure out what

to do about it, but we've done our job. We've screamed fire in a crowded theater and now we'll see

where everything ends up. I mean, Lindsey Graham is increasingly a pastiche of himself, but I mean

no sense of history. That reference to you break it, you own it, which of course is a rule that

exists in a popular home furnishings shop here in the United States that was cited by Colin

Powell when George W. Bush was considering invading Iraq in 2003. It was an admonition to President

George W. Bush. You got to remember, you break it, you own it. That's not an option. I mean,

that is an inviolable rule here that they're completely disregarding in the same way, by the way,

as the president in that interview with the telegraph. When he says on Starmer's refusal to allow

British bases to be used for strikes against Iran, he says, that's probably never happened between

our countries before. It sounds like he was worried about the legality. Well, do you remember when

Barack Obama was thinking of going to war in Syria and the British parliament didn't back it,

and that then forced Barack Obama to abandon his plans to go to war against Bashar al-Assad

in Syria. They have no sense of historical memory whatsoever, nor an understanding, in the case

of the president, about the legal complexities here. The British government was reportedly pulling

intelligence sharing because it was so concerned about Donald Trump's extrajudicial maritime

campaign of bringing death and destruction to people that he claimed without providing any proof

were Venezuelan drug traffickers heading towards American shores in speedboats. So these tensions

between the UK and Britain have a long and even recent history. And I just want to come back

James to to to MAGA and Donald Trump's problem with his core influences. Tucker Carlson,

the former Fox News host and now podcaster, who was in the White House only last week consulting

with President Trump is furious about this war on Iran and told an ABC reporter by phone over

the weekend that he considers it absolutely disgusting and evil. That is the scale of the difficulty

Donald Trump is waking up to here this morning domestically. Well, we will be no doubt talking

again later in the week. Thank you. I'd quite a lot of love as always coming in for you.

I thought I'd done a decent job for two hours, but you just smashed it out the park in 15 minutes.

Thank you Simon Marks. We'll speak later in the week. It is seven minutes after 12. I'll read this

out because I sometimes read out entrance for idiots corner, but this is for realists corner from

a list. As always, listening to Mr. James OB has added thought provoking nuance to a subject.

And I thought I was getting better at thinking through things myself. But with big topics like this,

I feel I'd like. I need James's voice in my head to see all sides. Well, that's a lovely thing

to say. But of course, this program is nothing without people ringing in and there's been proof of

that particular pudding in spades today. And we will continue really with my now almost crystallized

conviction that Starma couldn't have done anything differently. I wonder if you were at 10 o'clock

this morning or even at 11 o'clock this morning, you were of the view that Starma had been

supine in his support. Remember, when I came on air at 10 o'clock, I was still getting messages

about how pleased people were that Starma had not supported the United States. So that statement

made last night didn't get in time to make most editions of most newspapers. I'm very flattered

that you don't turn the radio on until 10 o'clock, but it meant that at 10 o'clock this morning,

you were turning on the radio, thinking that Kirstalma had told Donald Trump to sling his look.

And of course, he had told Donald Trump to sling his look in the context of the first and almost

certainly illegal attack in conjunction with Benjamin Netanyahu, fresh from genocide in Gaza,

in attacking illegally Iran. So there's no great mystery about why Kirstalma would want nothing

to do with that, although it is a big enough mystery for Kamibati not to be signally unable to

understand. And then Iran started attacking UK allies in the Middle East, up to and including

the UK air base in Cyprus. And although he didn't know that that had happened at the time that

he made the announcement, that has happened, well, the first drone reportedly went into the air

before he made his announcement. And crash landed just outside Arotiki shortly after he had made

the announcement. So make of that what you will, the point being that the situation changed

beyond recognition from a situation where Iran has done, I mean, state-sponsored terrorism not

withstanding, but in military terms, certainly in terms of that Ronald Reagan era law that was

enacted forbidding American governments from assassinating foreign leaders. They're not supposed to go

to war without congressional approval. The situation changed. And Starmer was asked a completely

different question about whether or not UK bases could be used to attack positions from which Iran

was attacking us. And that's why I'm pretty sure now that he's done the right thing. And I'm just

backtracking and reestablishing all of that because I think it's important to change your mind

when the facts change. Kirstalma has essentially done that. And so should you? So should you?

It is 10 minutes after 12. We should have a little bit of domestic news as well. I don't know if

you're listening to Nick this morning. He conducted an interview with Matt Goodwin, I'm told.

And I thought it would probably be, I don't know, he's the fellow that lost in

Gorton and Denton last week, although I believe that Nigel Farage has appointed him as the shadow

MP for Gorton and Denton. But I thought we'd listen back to some of that interview that Matt Goodwin

gave to Nick Ferrari earlier. And here's a little taste of it. And then we'll listen to the whole

thing later this hour. Okay, that was Matt Goodwin, the shadow MP for Gorton and Denton. I don't

know complaining, but we'll hear the whole interview later in the program. Greece has sent, as they

say, two Greek frigates and two F-16 fighter jets on route to Cyprus after the target, the island

became the target of drone strikes on Monday. France and Germany joining Kirstalma in that

announcement about support for defensive strikes. But as an earlier, I just mispronounced our

criteria. I did, didn't I? Sorry, I'm doing my best this morning, honestly. As far as we're aware,

as far as I'm aware, and it took an earlier corner to point this out, there's a difference between

having bases from which American law can launch attacks and being supportive of the tactic,

while not actually supplying the bases yourself. I don't think that's a hair split. I think that's

a significant difference. But Greece now joining allies in defending positions from Iranian attacks,

even though the Iranian attacks wouldn't be happening, were it not for the illegal assault upon

Iran by other allies? Are you still with me at the back? So did Kirstalma get it right? Boris

is in Luxembourg. Boris, what do you recommend? Hi, James. Thanks very much for taking my call.

Did you get it right? I don't think he did. And let me give you two very boring scenarios,

and one positive scenario of why I think we should really think over whether we're going to get

sucked into this or not. Issue number one is, with the assassination of the Ayatollah

Khameini, we've not just had killed the head of Iran, but we've also killed a person that is

the head of the religion for 250 million, some of them quite fanatic sheets, living all over the

world, including 400,000 in Germany, for example. I don't know how many in the UK. And we have to

understand that the Khameini isn't just the head of the religious, like the Pope equivalent.

Yes. But even more than that, he is, as I understand it, the keeper of the hidden

Imam, which almost makes him into a Jesus Christ-like figure. And when I look at those figures of

people mourning now for the next couple of 40 days apparently in Iran, I just hope that I've got

sufficient distance with my family, with anybody who's got fanatical ideas about what's

to do as a result of that. So it could have, rather than removing the threat of terrorism,

it could well have provoked and prompted more. But, again, this is simultaneously a really

important distinction, Boris, but also an exercise in splitting hairs. Starmer was not party to that

assassination. Look, I agree with that. He was not party of starting the war and he kept the

distance. But before he starts throwing us, everybody in the Western world, in Europe and the UK,

again into this risk, he should be taken then to consideration. So you're right, it doesn't start.

He has taken it into consideration. And with the drone attacks reaching our bases in Cyprus,

our allies coming under attack from Iran, it just explains to me how he could do nothing.

Okay. Can I make my... Yeah, of course he can, sorry. Then we can talk about those drones.

Second thing is, of course, with taking out Iran, every single country, whether it's a democracy

or whether it is a dictatorship, we will now be looking at their own defense and we'll be thinking,

do I need a nuclear weapon myself? And this will happen. Not just in dictatorial regimes

like Iran, but this will happen in places like Germany, Japan, Korea. So with Trump's foreign

policy, this is just an escalation of nuclear proliferation everywhere. That's going to be the

biggest disaster and the biggest legacy that Trump is going to leave behind. Now my last and my

positive point is the great thing about what's Trump has done here is by taking out the head of a

state and and the rest of the cabinet and officially targeting them. So starting a war and saying,

I'm going to kill the people that run this country. He has now shifted international law and

we the people we should hold on to this. From now on, anybody who is involved in a war or who

starts a war should become a legitimate target. And if Kirstama goes down and gets sucked into

this, he too should be a target. Trump should be a target. Putin should be a target. Maybe when we

get the people who are in charge of starting the wars, responsible with their lives for starting

the wars, maybe they're not going to be so trigger happy before. So those were my three points.

We should, that last point, we should be holding on because people will try to waffle about it

again and say, Oh, no, there was, you know, it was Iran. It was a special case. No. If this is

now international law, they have no more immunity. And that's fine with me. That's the way it should

be. Why should they sit in their big, beautiful palaces, safety when we take a 19-year-old kid,

conscript them, put him in a tank and then give him into the UK in a Russian war?

Yeah, but I said to an earlier caller, I wish that we lived in the world that you describe,

and I'm going to say the same thing to you, but we don't. So you can't really use that as

a camouflage for the difficult question that Keir Starmer has had to answer. You can't answer a

question about the horns of the dilemma that he faced by saying, well, the horns should never

have existed or that people who, listen, I don't think international law in the context of illegal

wars. I don't think it's ever been weaker. Vladimir Putin must be laughing all the way to wherever it

is that he goes for downtime at the moment because what America is doing is comparable, of course,

to what Russia has done, albeit that Iran was a much more deserving target of aggression than

Ukraine ever was. James, I don't want to be, you know, back to your question in terms of what other

choices do you have, right? Yeah. In this moment, of course, in the last 24 hours, the shift from

the attack that he didn't support to the decision to support responses to the attack that Iran has

launched. And that is based on what? On two drones suddenly? No, it's not. It's based upon missiles

landing in Jordan. It's based upon attacks upon other allies. It's based upon US Air Force bases

that are on the soil that belongs to our allies. So it's based upon the international network

of obligations and treaties. I understand that. And how is that different from Israel constantly

bombing by root just because some people who are allies of the Iranis start launching attacks

attacks on Israel from the land of Lebanon. How does that differ? How does what differ?

So you have a situation where where Iran is saying, I'm going to attack these allies of you

because you're using them. Oh, no, sorry. No, I understand your point, but you're doing it again.

You know, no, no, you're doing it again because two wrongs don't make a right. I find that an

awful lot of the things that Israel does are almost certainly in breach of international law

up to and including genocide in Gaza. But that doesn't take away from the fact that Iran is doing

what Iran is doing and Kirstalmer's job is to respond. I go, I agree, but I still maintain given

the given the risks and threats we have given that this has clearly started out of the blue by

Israel and the United States. Yes. The thing to do right now for us in the in the Western world and

Western Europe, including the UK, get the beer and ice, get the popcorn on, listen to LBC in terms

of what happens and relax. And when British troops die and you will have to pay a little bit more

on the pump. And when British military personnel die? When because because to the number do we change

then? Well, if if we have real facts about Cyprus being attacked, not by drones, why would Iran

fly through drones? Look at the map where they're Cyprus is. If we move it, if we move into the

realms of disputing the veracity of reports that we're receiving and and there's three now,

then there's then there's no point continuing the conversation. But three Americans have already

died. If some of the missiles that have been launched at installations in the Middle East had

achieved their goal, it's not beyond doubt, beyond reasonable doubt that British military personnel

would also have been vulnerable to attack. And I presume your position, what we might describe

Boris as the popcorn position, I presume that would change the moment British blood was spilt by

Iranian retaliation to an attack that had nothing to do with Britain. If it is targeted, yes,

if a bomb lands somewhere in, if it's collateral, if it's collateral, then the same principle stands

because you could have taken out the means by which that missile has been launched and you have

urged Kirstaama not to do so. You're convincing and maybe you should have gotten that PhD instead

of mine from the other PhD. Yeah, I'll tell you what, maybe both of us could have done a better

job than Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner, but it's not for us to say, Boris, thank you, I always

enjoy talking to you. 21 minutes after, 12 is the time and then of course the ripples

from the rock, it's a it's a it's a weak metaphor, but it's an accurate one. The rock that has been

tossed into the pond of international relations, not just Middle Eastern politics, by Benjamin

Netanyahu and Donald Trump now with Lindsey Graham, his key ally, sort of saying it's not our job

to have a plan. That's incredible, right? Also disavowing that Colin Powell comment about if you

break it, you own it. Lindsey Graham and therefore by association possibly Donald Trump seem to

have learned one lesson only from the US adventures in Iraq and that is, well don't even pretend that

you've got any interest whatsoever in what happens after you've achieved your short term self-interested

goals. That interview, I may play it to you again actually, just I mean bonkers, right?

I disagree with that if you break it, you own it, so you go into a foreign country, you blow stuff

up, you assassinate the leader and then you just clear off home and hope that you've somehow done

enough to change the direction of traffic on Donald Trump's approval ratings, on the imminent

midterm elections and crucially, I honestly believe crucially on the refusal of the Jeffrey

Epstein scandal to go away from Donald Trump's point of view. I developed an allergy some time ago

to dead cats because it just used to annoy me and this is a me problem, not a you problem,

is that I'd sit here trying to provide you with detailed and often quite complicated analysis

of difficult situations and you'd send me a little text that just said something like yeah but he's

only doing it because of Jeffrey Epstein and I just thought what's the point in trying to see the

nuance, what's the point in trying to see the complexities and the wrinkles in this in this

moment, if you're just going to send me a message going yeah but Epstein and that's a me problem,

I'm allergic to that dead cat there, but it of course it's true, not all the time, not always

that everything that Donald Trump does is not designed exclusively to distract from whatever

the last scandal was, but it's a bit like Boris Johnson, we used to talk about it when Boris

Johnson was prime minister, but on this occasion I'm afraid the dead cat is absolutely

relevant and crucial to understanding any of this, Simon Marx and I have been

pointing out for months that the bigger Epstein gets and remember it's brought down a member

of the royal family in a former ambassador to the United States of America so far just in this

little country, the bigger it gets this problem, the more mad Donald Trump will be in his attempts to

avoid it, so you might as well have called this military action operation Epstein fury

because I honestly believe that it is a huge part of his reasoning, self-interest, self-interest,

self-interest again with Boris Johnson, if you're trying to work out why he has done anything

then all you need to do is grasp what he believes will be the best for him and him alone in the

shortest term, the shortest term, the space of a single news cycle, so that's how you end up in

this sort of situation. And that is why Stalmer's job, whether you like it or not, you prefer your

politics binary and simplistic, but tough, Stalmer's job is really difficult in this moment and I think

he's got it absolutely right, absolutely right. I think he had a terrible weekend, he's lost

another minister, I don't know whether you've seen this, it's been rather overshadowed by events,

but the minister who was running the Labour Together Think Tank when it was commissioning

extraordinary and inappropriate investigations into UK journalists, he's gone Josh Simon's, his name,

the immediate response to the Gorton and Denton by election for me is another nail in the coffin

of his premiership, let me be absolutely clear about that, coming out and talking about extremists

on both sides, as if you can somehow compare people who voted green with people who voted for

Farage's crypto fascist bandwagon is insanely stupid. Almost everybody that voted green would

have been at some point in their life sympathetic to a wall voting for the Labour Party. And

Keir Stalmer has insulted them all. Listen, that was badly as Farage, I think has now come out and

said I'm not sure that anyone who voted green works. I don't know why he is so sour grape here,

but is it two for two now? It's because he lost carefully and he lost Gorton and Denton, so his

sort of self-image now is thin skinned, his paper thin skin is now bruised and he can't quite

deal with the with the fact of failure. You'd have thought he'd have got used to it by now,

he had about six goes, it's becoming an MP. Oh, I'm told that we have got some exclusive footage

of Nigel Farage also reflecting on the Gorton and Denton by election as well. So we heard earlier

from the Shadow MP for Gorton and Denton on the subject of last week's result. We now have

a few words from the leader of reform UK or whatever it's called.

That's odd, it sounds very similar to each other, I'd never really picked up on that before.

But Keir Stalmer's problem with standing, all of that last week was disastrous,

really disastrous, talking about extremists going green. But I think he's got this absolutely

right. I'm only mentioning the stuff from last week, so that you don't think I'm engaging in

footballification myself. I think Stalmer's almost certainly toast, but I think he's got this

absolutely bang on. You can almost tell something else I'm allergic to,

along with the dead cats, is by saying that you can judge the goodness of a situation by who

object to it. But if Donald Trump is complaining and Kimmy Badenock is complaining and Nigel Farage

is complaining and Jeremy Corbyn is complaining, then it's possible that you've pulled off a

moment of diplomacy that is absolutely magnificent. We shall see, enough from me,

Alzing Glasgow, Al, what would you like to say? Hi, and earlier on you asked a question,

what were doing nothing to look like? I love the way you say earlier on, without being rude

enough to say before you just embarked on that interminable and not entirely relevant fifth

monologue of the morning. Thank you, Al, I did ask what were doing, nothing looked like.

I couldn't possibly see something like that. But anyway, yes, you asked that question.

So, what would do, nothing looked like? First of all, our inability to defend our own bases

or people or interests alone. So, for example, what is British shipping as attacked

and the US declined to defend them? Who are you going to call?

As it goes. Yeah. And it was an interesting guy, I mentioned him from time to time, Malcolm

Nance, who's a US intelligence guy, using Iran's naturally going to go through drones all around

the place. And you know, they've probably got hundreds of thousands of these shaheads and

they start appearing towards, you know, flying towards shipping. Then what can we do? We need,

we need people to help us. So, that's one factor I think that Starrer has got to. He's got to

consider that. The other one is, if we, if we don't provide access to other use of these bases,

Trump could, I mean, he's vindictive. He could just come back and say, you don't do that.

I'm not going to provide intelligence or air defense or sales of the arms to Ukraine. And I think

if anything, that's the biggest issue we need to stay focused on and not compromise.

I think there's a two really brilliant point, actually. And what ones that have been largely

absent from the conversations that we've been having today. And that, I mean, he's already

smarting at the failure to support the original, probably, illegal attack. If you'd compounded that

by not being part of the response to the response, then who here would not put money on him

responding in an incredibly petulant and, and, and, and pathetic, but nonetheless, deep

be damaging to UK interests kind of well. Right. You're on your own. They've got, they've got,

they've hijacked one of your oil tankers in the state of Holmers. Well, you're on your own. You

didn't help us. We're not going to, and also have another 20% on your tariffs as well. He could

do anything, right? And I think this is down to Trump management. And I think it's clever of

Starmer to coordinate responses with, with Meritz and Macron. Yes, I do too. Even though they've got less,

I've overused this phrase slightly, they've got less on the line. That's better than what I was

going to say. They've got less on the line in the context of where these bases are and, and,

and what, what, what those alliances involve. Yeah. And I know that when I switch on the,

the news, you know, and who hear one thing else, you know, get a knee-jerk reaction. And,

you know, I'll start throwing things at the radio. But then after a few minutes and had my

cup of tea, I'll have a considered reaction. And basically, we pay Starmer to do the latter.

Yes, that's exactly why you're all the information available to them and to make decisions.

And so for the time being at least, I'm trusting him to do that. Yeah, I am. And

quite pleased, actually, to find myself in a position of, rather, more positivity, albeit that I

wish the bigger picture wasn't happening with regard to his, his diplomacy. He's always

seemed to be better on the international stage than the domestic stage. But two powerful answers

there to the simple question of what we're doing, nothing looked like. Because the question,

no one can answer, not least because the United States regime has entirely disassociated itself

from any responsibility whatsoever for the outcomes of what it's doing. Is the question

that General David Petraeus asked in 2003 of Rick Atkinson of the Washington Post. This is

remembered in a rather good editor, a rather good piece by Max Hastings, who is one of the few

people that you should turn to really first when it comes to comments on these kind of moments.

And I can say that with complete objectivity because he wants to sack my late father. So he's not

a man for whom I hold an enormous amount of affection. But it's him that recalls that question

Petraeus put to the journalist Rick Atkinson of the Washington Post in Baghdad in 2003. Tell me how

this ends. And who here, I mean a timely reminder from Al if just how different the world is today.

Who here thinks that Donald Trump has given a tiny moment, a scintilla of contemplational

consideration to what happens to the ordinary Iranians on the ground in Tehran, some of whom currently

celebrating delighted at the Ayatollah has gone. But who here honestly thinks that Donald Trump

gives a monkeys about them this after all is a man who described the 1800 Marines who lost their

lives at Bellowwood in the second world war as suckers for getting killed this after he of course

cancelled a visit to the American cemetery near Paris in 2018 because he was worried that the

weather would leave his hair looking even more ridiculous than usual. One senior staff member later

recalled Trump saying, why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers. Another one of

those moments when you think, did people not notice what he was like the first time around?

Dick Little John writing articles about why he wants Britain to be led by Donald Trump not

Kirstama. That is the ignorance of the fact that Trump has described people who made the ultimate

sacrifice Americans who gave their lives in defense of the West. He's described them as suckers

and losers or does Dick Little John and people like him just not care about stuff like that because

I don't know is it just because the racism is so seductive and intoxicating? I honestly have no clue.

Matt Huett is here now with your headlines. Tehran 37 is the time US Central Command reporting that

a fourth member of US military personnel has been killed and also reports coming in that an oil

refinery in Saudi Arabia has been hit by an Iranian drone. Escalation is of course the word of

the moment and what Starmer should do in the face of that escalation. It was the question that we

began the show with this morning. Don't be part of the original almost certainly illegal attack in

other words marching into war in the Middle East in the company of a depraved moral bankrupt and

the genocidal leader of Israel. Correct decision. Contribute however to attempt to defend your

own interests and your allies from Iran's response to that illegal attack. Also the correct

decision. The world is a complicated place never more so than when human beings are killing other

human beings. Kirstama I think has plotted. I don't know if it was even a very difficult

choice for him to make but he has plotted I think the entirely correct course on this occasion

and I speak as someone who thinks he's getting almost everything else wrong at the moment.

1238 is the time. What about you? Paul's in Cambridge. Paul what would you like to say?

Thanks for taking the call. Starting from the starting point of Kirstama initial reaction was

fury. I've changed but I was furious because I'm always furious and people pendered to

Trump because it's like feeding the rabid dog and people must look I've been following for 10

years 10 years ago I said this guy is going to end the world if we're not careful. When he

stalk I saw him stalking Hillary. I saw it as crystal clear and I've been trying to do my little

bit to speak out and inform people about what a monk there he is. Well I bet you're feeling very

silly now aren't you Paul? He was all right. I could all wrong. What a fool I am. The golden age

is offended upon a form of a big flat orange. You sound like Dick Little John Paul for which I

apologise I should never really accuse anybody of that. So I agree that finally after my rage I

agree Trump has no choice. I'm sorry. Starmer had no choice. I get that but that's the problem.

We're putting ourselves confident in positions of being defensive of having no choice

until we stand up Europe Britain against this monster and do something about him it's going to

we're going to keep on having no choices James it's going to keep on happening. But what do you do? I

mean you know the drones are heading towards Cyprus other allies are under attack the original

attack upon Iran is unjustified and largely unjustifiable regardless of how warmly we may welcome

the removal of the Ayatollah or how complicit Iran has been in state-sponsored terrorism that

those are the things that have to be interrogated in international courts or at least examined and

therefore approved by Congress you can't justify anything that's been done as an autonomous

decision taken by Trump and Netanyahu and Starmer had nothing to do with that but then the world

changes according to what they did on Saturday and in that world what Trump has done subsequently

is correct and also it's all very well talking about feeding a rabid dog and I'm now going to

take your metaphor and stretch it to breaking point what if by feeding the rabid dog you stop the

rabid dog from biting you hey that's not the point that's not the point in my theoretical counterfactual

you feed the rabid dog and actually won't buy you for a bit well I tell you what you try it your

way I try it nice. There's a rabid dog first catch your rabid dog but you take my point I mean

Trump is impossible to reason with because you might be in his good books yesterday and then be in

his bad books tomorrow as as Kirstama frequently seems to oscillate between the two doesn't he but

if you take the decision objectively set aside the fact that Trump will either approve or

disapprove of what you're doing and do what you believe to be right I think you end up doing

what Kirstama has done on both occasions I agree yeah as I said he put himself in that we're

in that position we had no choice or Kirstama had no choice if it did the right thing but I'm

talking about dealing with the underlying problem and I'm talking about for example

sanctions against America as far as that yeah and then then the tariffs come back times

times a thousand don't they well we have we have to suffer a little bit without bloody

Budweiser we have to suffer I think it's a little bit I mean I just it's a little bit more

complicated than that if we were to impose sanctions on the United States of America they'd impose

even more sanctions on us and of course the tariffs thing is as Simon Marx keeps reminding us

how much of the coverage in this country even mentioned tariffs that hat trick of horror shows

that Trump has got going on at the moment Epstein tariffs being overruled by a Supreme Court

that he tried to rig in his favor anyway and then approval rating so this this trident

of trouble this hat trick of horrors that I started speaking fluent tabloid that Donald Trump

finds himself caught between at the moment is approval ratings have gone through the floor

the Supreme Court has adjudged his tariff hallmark policy to be illegal gonna have to start

refunding companies and countries soon and Epstein is not going away everybody knows he's lying

when he claims that he's been completely exonerated unfortunately there are now no proper journalists

left in a position to point that out to him first thing anybody would have said five years ago

if a president or two years ago had attempted such a blatant and public lie would have been I'm

sorry but how do you work that out there are all sorts of accusations and allegations against you

in the bits that have actually been released how on earth can you claim that you've been

completely exonerated by anything that hasn't been fully published let alone the stuff that has

been published giving the light of the idea that you've been completely exonerated but there it is

there he goes still more or less untroubled by truth and reality thank you Paul Anna is in Edinburgh

Anna what would you like to say hello Anna what would you like to say I'm a student and I live in

UK for seven years but I just call to express my happiness about things happening in Iran so none

of the social media or anywhere cover things really happen in Iran and what's what is like what

is look like is people are so happy in Iran because the dictatorships died and I just want to express

my happiness and say thank you to Trump and Netanyahu they just been so brave they did something

like that I welcome your applause for what is an act of almost certain international criminality but

I don't think you can call Donald Trump brave without me pushing back at least a little bit Anna

what do you think is going to happen next I just hope peace and justice and happiness for my people

we have a king he lives in America at the moment Bobby who peep back King Reza Pahlavi and everyone

is waiting for him I hope you're right I really do and it's not my job today to drizzle on your

parade I really hope you're right but I can't think of any other examples from history of countries

being liberated by foreign intervention and then moving effortlessly and and happily towards

peace can you yeah but the leader we used to have he wasn't Iranian as well he was KGB guy from Russia

he trained to be the question I'm just asking is about other countries where there's been regime

change essentially imposed from outside that has turned out well for the people in that country

I'm just struggling to think of an example yeah but King Reza Pahlavi he's Iranian he's no

no no I know who the son of the last shower I know exactly who he is but it doesn't change the fact

that there are no historical precedents and he of course his father was overthrown by the CIA

and and am I six yeah so it proves my point really about the difficulty of finding any examples

from history but I join you wholeheartedly in hoping for peace and happiness and indeed in

reminding us something we've been saying throughout the program that many Iranians both inside

and outside Iran will be celebrating the removal of of the Iatola from from the planet not just

of course from office yeah yeah that's it really isn't it that's it it's all you've got is hope

and I hope that your hope turns out to be justified it's top 48 operation boot it was I've got my

facts a little bit wrong there but I possibly should have been corrected the prime minister of

Iran overthrown in a coup d'etat in August of 1953 in an operation that was instigated by MI6

and CIA ideally or rather obviously to protect British oil interests in Iran after the prime

minister nationalized the country's oil industry so setting emotion a chain of events that may

of course be coming to an end in the next few weeks although it seems highly unlikely that

Lindsey Graham interviews probably the one that he's not a very important person but he gets an

awful lot of coverage because he's such a fully paid up member of the Trump fan club but the idea

that there there is no longer any responsibility to worry about what happens next it's

extraordinary to hear them say it out loud and who would have thought that the lesson of Iraq

which was initially successful it's easy to forget that greeted with enormous celebration both

inside and outside Iraq I don't think many people looking back would argue particularly Iraqis

that they've come out of that scenario better off than they went into it but in the first moment

the toppling of Saddam Hussein the killing of the Ayatollah in Iran you can see why people

would celebrate because they've lived under the yoke of deeply oppressive regimes and there's

a little glimpse of freedom but Iraq has taught us that if you don't have a plan as to what's going

to happen next then there is every possibility things will be however bad you think they were before

there is every possibility things will be even worse afterwards and the lesson of Iraq would be

don't go in with all guns blazing unless you've got really clear ideas and plans as to what's

going to happen next but the lesson that people like Lindsey Graham and quite possibly Donald Trump

have taken from history from Iraq would be well don't even pretend it's your job to have a plan

as to what's going to happen next that old caution from Colin Powell that if you break it you own it

completely rejected by Lindsey Graham in that interview I played you earlier they said no no

we can break it and then just sold off we can break it and just vacate the premises so that would

be my lesson and as I said to Anna in Edinburgh a moment ago I hope that you're right and I hope

that things do go better for the people of Iran but your neighbor's just called

from the last country that had its leader it's also critic murderous leader toppled by US intervention

killed by US intervention and they don't necessarily paint a very positive picture of what you can

expect our mean is in East Ham I mean what would you like to say hi Jane how are you doing very

well mate what's going on very good very good I's a British Iranian I just had to call into

respond to that previous caller who said Trump and Netanyahu were heroes and that is an absolute

joke I you can say that I didn't feel that it would be appropriate for me to do so yeah I get

I understand I think but I also understand and I get why Iranians like like they say any like

you're saying any glimmer of hope to see this fearcratic oppressive regime like when you're

a traumatic state you just want to grasp anything to get out of it but yes look at history like

and look at the South like do people really think Israel and America are doing it for the freedom

of the Iranian people I mean it's it's so obvious and it's just so unfortunate that people

fall for this and you know when I go to the pro-Palestinian marches and see the the Iranian flag next

to the Israeli flag it makes me sad because like it makes me feel like people aren't seeing the self

interest self-interested motives of Israel or America to be honest I mean Israel's motivation is

different from from from Donald Trump's or rather Netanyahu's motivation is different from Donald

Trump's he's he's got his eye on elections or still that his eye on possible prosecution anything

to keep the guns firing he calculates will play well for him domestically but Trump I mean Simon

Marx highlighted it perfectly Trump is in so much trouble not that you'd know it from a lot of

American coverage because of course most of the American media has bent the knee that it has an

air of desperation to it from the American perspective no matter that he was doing a lap of

on a nine months ago for destroying the threat that didn't exist then but which he claimed he'd

completely removed from the map and then suddenly out to go back nine months later to deal with

the threat that he claimed he'd completely destroyed nine months ago even though it didn't

exist then it doesn't exist now there's a desperation to it all but it is I think I do feel like

you know this attempt to to I think you know you know globally you know securitization any reason

to kind of bolster the war economy is it's going to be beneficial for for a state like for a person

like Trump in the position he is also Netanyahu like has a history of wanting to stoke enemies you

and like kind of it kind of builds into the the history the unfortunate history of securitization

in Israel and how this has led to a like a wall's up approach when in obviously it could have

been done another way but you know that's history now but unfortunately you know it's still a

process isn't it it's an ongoing process the Washington Post reports that US and

Simon picked up on this US intelligence assessments were were that Iran was unlikely to pose an

immediate threat to the US mainland within the next decade but week long weeks long lobbying

effort by Israel and Saudi Arabia essentially prompted Trump to change course and weighed in

to this the other bit that I think fits him with what you say about the toppling of the supreme

leader as he styled himself was that he didn't take special security measures even though he knew

the attacks were about to start and was killed in his home precisely because he wanted to die

in that fashion the concept of martyrdom in sheer and in Iranian culture remains extremely potent

and then the bit I've forgotten because I can't find the reference to it was a bit where Trump

sort of accidentally said out loud that they had two or three people in mind to replace the

Iatola who they thought that they could do business with but they've gone and killed them as well

it's it's yeah like I mean there's no love lost with the death of the supreme leader and

yes Iran wants to foster this sense of embattlement as well themselves the martyrdom

you know obviously Pharaoh intervention has always had a history of rallying the people around

the government no matter how autocratic they are so in a way like it's kind of you know you

could there's a strong argument that this will foster a further statement. I won't be linked

of course if God forbid there's a terror attack on British or American soil and it is inspired

but in some way by what's happening in Iran no one will let no one will hold the people who have

responsible for attacking Iran responsible for retaliation by terrorists I'm not sure they

sure either but it's a piece of the jigsaw that never gets put on the table because

and unfortunately there's you know it's from the UK perspectives there's arguments that you know

like like you know protecting British personnel protecting British interests but you've seen

like in the like post-9-11 wars you know like a continual foreign intervention

well that's the question in states in southwest Asia will actually make us a target

looking for an example of where it's gone well is so far a thankless task but that doesn't

mean that there aren't examples I've just missed them thank you I mean on the question of

the Lindsey Graham interview I saw one headline this morning I mentioned that they'd have gone to

press before Starmer had made his announcement last night so the Daily Mail went with the

headline Starmer condemned for reluctance to back US assault and you think that's interesting

who's condemned him and it's Lindsey Graham a man who soiled himself on live international

television by letting slip that they had no not only did they have no plan at all for what happens

next but they didn't think it was their responsibility to have a plan either and that they reject

completely the idea that if you break something you have a responsibility to fix it so that's who

the Daily Mail turned to for so desperate is their hatred of care Starmer that they end up citing

a man who has humiliated himself and the United States of America on live television in his attempts

to defend what is almost certainly an illegal attack upon Iran. Natasha Clark has been at a brief

can I say that out loud has been at a briefing at Downing Street and she's here with some of the

stuff that she's allowed to tell us. Good afternoon James yes so I've just been listening to Downing

Street talking about the situation obviously in Iran has mainly been been dominating and they

insisted that the UK does have a strong energy supply so we've got no worries about fuel or anything

domestically and but obviously the main concern I think from government today is how and if they

need to carry out a widespread evacuation of citizens so obviously we know there's 200,000

people expected to be in the region and as you were just saying the government's changing in their

advice on whether we give the Americans the support to use our bases they talked us through

that basically they do think it is still in accordance with international law that we're doing

this very important for care Starmer as an international lawyer to be able to make that case

and we don't at the moment have any update for whether the government believes that our bases

in Cyprus would deliberately hit by Iran I think if that is the case James that's really going to

change the game for how the UK government's position is but they are still encouraging all foreign

nationals to be registering with the foreign office in the region so they can continue to give

the most up-to-date advice for what people should do. And I imagine a statement to the House at

some point today. We're expecting the Prime Minister to see that. It's almost like I knew that.

So afternoon at around 330 so we'll get a little bit more from him on that.

And interestingly also James I just wanted to add that we've been speaking to people this morning

it sounds like there are people within the government that do believe that there are fears that

these attacks from Iran could last for up to a week. It's believed that there is intelligence

that suggests that they have learnt some lessons from the 12-day war and they are worried that

Iran has got extra essentially capabilities to essentially last a little bit longer in terms of

that. So it is a situation that obviously the government is going to be having to continually monitor

potentially for another few days. Thank you Natasha. I think I'll leave you with the words that

I started to those program with General David Patreus in Baghdad as the commander of the U.S.

101st Airborne Division in 2003 saying to Rick Atkinson of the Washington Post, tell me

how this ends. If you missed any of today's show you can listen back on our free global

player app or the LBC app where you can also stay up to date with all the latest news,

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Tom Sorbrett will be with you at 4 on LBC but now it's Sheila Fogg.