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Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Iran on the Brink of the Abyss: War Drums, the Death Knell of the People

All Sides Will Make the People Pay

Tuesday 10 March 2026, by Houshang Sepehr

Writing in early March 2026 as Trump threatens Iran with further military action and sections of the right-wing exile opposition beat the war drums, Houshang Sepehr --- organiser of Solidarité avec les Travailleurs en Iran --- issues an unambiguous warning. War does not liberate peoples: it destroys the infrastructures of their lives, disperses labour movements, and promotes new reactionary forces. Sepehr condemns in equal measure the Islamic Republic’s politically criminal intransigence, US military intimidation, Israeli militarism, and the monarchist and ethnicist factions who see externally imposed regime change as their path to power. [MJ] [1]

Over Iranian territory, the smell of gunpowder and blood hangs in the air. No fragrance of freedom, no scent of dawn. Only the stench of munitions depots that, at the first spark, would bring down the roofs of houses — never those of the palaces of power.

The scene repeats itself, relentless: threats from Washington, adventurism from Tehran, the war machine in Tel Aviv, and the clamour of monarchist and ethnicist circles. Each speaks its own language, but the message is universal: it is Iranian society that will pay in blood.

Donald Trump, in his swaggering tone, had been warning for days: "grave consequences will befall Iran" if no agreement is reached. The United States declared itself ready for military intervention against what it considers an imminent threat. Military officials confirmed: the army is "ready for all scenarios." In military language, this is not merely a state of alert — it is the shadow of catastrophe looming overhead.

On the other side, the late Ali Khamenei, [2] with an obstinacy bordering on political criminality, had for years been plunging the country into repression, sanctions, poverty and isolation. In so doing, he then pushed the nation towards a devastating war, using the climate of fear to smother all social and political contestation.

Between these two poles of danger, Benjamin Netanyahu lay in wait, at the head of a war machine ready to strike, while a section of the right-wing opposition, eyes gleaming, transformed the possible roar of explosions into an illusion of freedom.

This is the tacit alliance of reactionary forces: a conglomerate whose profits feed the powerful, and whose price is paid in the blood of the people.

When War Strikes, Everything Breaks

War is not merely an explosion. It is the progressive collapse of life. A worker who, tomorrow, will have no factory. A mother hesitating between the queue for bread and the queue for medicine. A child memorising the wail of air-raid sirens instead of the school bell. A city whose nights are lit by the flashes of anti-aircraft fire, never by the light of hearths.

In strategic inner circles, people speak of "military options" without ever smelling the overcrowded hospitals. They ignore the fact that entire generations will live for years with trauma, poverty and an absence of horizons.

War, even a brief one, leaves lasting scars. When it takes root, it fractures society from within.

The Bloody History of the Region

No prophecy is needed to understand --- one only has to look around. In Iraq, people spoke of "surgical strikes": society was dismembered. In Libya, "protecting the people" did not prevent the collapse of the state. In Syria, the "opportunity for change" buried generations under rubble.

Everywhere the war machine of the ruling classes has intervened, it is the infrastructures of life that have been destroyed: the working class dispersed, social movements smothered, new reactionary forces promoted. Such is the unwritten law of contemporary wars. [3]

Dark Scenario: Iran on the Edge of the Downward Spiral

The danger currently exceeds a few isolated strikes. Iran has entered a destructive spiral that could rapidly plunge the society into a situation comparable to Syria’s. [4]

Today, the exhausted economy, deep social discontent, the water crisis, and mass unemployment render Iranian society extremely vulnerable in the face of regional conflict.

In these conditions, war could:

— - Precipitate the economic collapse into freefall;

— - Accelerate the militarisation of society;

— - Inflame ethnic and regional fractures;

— - Plunge daily life under the grip of Islamist terrorist movements, Persian supremacists, and other ethnicist forces;

— - And above all, crush the people’s struggle for freedom under the weight of securitarianism.

At that point, the question will no longer be who holds power, but what remains alive within society.

Walking on the People’s Blood

Among the darkest scenes: certain factions of the right-wing opposition are beating the war drum rather than alerting the population. Aware that they have no role to play in overthrowing the regime from below, these actors are betting on a regime change imposed from above.

Iranian society is not a military testing ground. Every missile first pierces the life of the people. Every tightened sanction first reduces the bread on the worker’s table. And every war launched casts mourning over the mothers of this land.

How many more times must this people pay? How many more generations will be buried beneath the rubble of "geopolitical necessities"? How many more times must they mistake freedom for the howl of sirens?

Humanist Resistance Against Planned Death

Faced with this clamour for war, one must assert, without hesitation, a profoundly humanist position: [5]

— - No to the murderous enterprises of Islamism and the regime’s "leadership";

— - No to Donald Trump’s policy of military intimidation;

— - No to Israel’s military adventurism;

— - No to the dangerous and criminal gambles of the monarchists and ethnicist forces.

The Iranian people are neither the fuel for a war, nor a pawn on the chessboard of negotiations. Freedom, if it is to be real, will emerge neither from a cannon, nor from a missile, nor from Trump declaring "We are ready [to support you]."

Freedom springs only from the heart of a society that survives, organises, and takes its destiny into its own hands. All of this demands great sacrifice.

2 March 2026

Translated and notes by Mark Johnson for ESSF from ESSF in French.

Attached documents

Footnotes

[1] Photo: Tagesschau, 2 March 2026. In Minab, a girls’ secondary school bombed: 165 killed.

[2] Ali Khamenei (1939–2026), Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1989. He was assassinated on 28 February 2026 in a joint US-Israeli airstrike targeting senior Iranian officials in Tehran. His death was confirmed by the Iranian government on 1 March 2026.

[3] For context on the regional dynamics, see Houshang Sepehr, "Faced with the Iran-Israel War, a Third Way Is Possible!", International Viewpoint, 2025. Available at: https://internationalviewpoint.org

[4] On the ongoing social crisis and protests in Iran, see "Iran on Fire: Rebellion Returns to the Streets", Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières, 2026. Available at: https://europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article77590.

[5] For further expressions of independent left opposition to both the Islamic Republic and to imperialist intervention, see "Where Are Iran’s Protests Going in 2026?", Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières, 2026. Available at: https://europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article77667 (URL to be verified before publication); and Reza H. Akbari, "Is Iran Trapped in a State of Political Paralysis?", Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières, January 2026. Available at: https://europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article77675.

Trump was blindsided by what all experts already knew about Iran: Nobel Prize winner

Ewan Gleadow
March 10, 2026

RAW STORY

Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on board Air Force One. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

A growing problem caused by the strikes on Iran should have been noted before military action was taken, a Nobel Prize winner has claimed.

Paul Krugman suggested the impact of Donald Trump's bombing in the country should have factored into the decision-making, but it does not appear to have had much effect on the choices made by the administration. The economist believes that, had cooler heads prevailed, then the government would have at least prepared for the aftershock of an economic crisis which shows no signs of stopping.

Writing in his Substack, Krugman suggested the Trump admin should have been aware that oil prices would surge following the first strike. He wrote, "The people who decided to begin this war should have seen this coming. All the evidence, however, suggests that they didn’t."

Krugman pointed to Trump's economic gamble as a reason for the worsening oil prices. He added, "Although we import some oil, mainly from Canada and Mexico, while exporting even more oil, mainly from Texas, we buy hardly any oil from the Persian Gulf.

"Yet the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused U.S. prices of oil products to soar. Self-sufficiency in oil has done nothing at all to insulate the U.S. economy from Middle East chaos.

"Now, we should have expected that. Oil is traded on world markets, so the price is more or less the same everywhere. The two most widely watched barometers of oil prices are the West Texas Intermediate price in the United States and Brent crude in Europe.

"America exports more oil than it imports, while Europe is a massive net importer. Yet the two prices have moved in tandem over the years."

While some may be surprised by the price hike, the economist believes there is no insulation that would have prevented the US from being affected by the Strait of Hormuz closure, or the strikes on Iran.

"Some people have been shocked at the way U.S. gasoline, diesel and heating oil prices have soared over the past few days," Krugman wrote, "But they shouldn’t have been surprised.

"In the 1970s the U.S. imposed price controls on domestically produced oil and partially insulated consumers from global oil shocks. Over time, however, these price controls led to shortages — the infamous gasoline lines.

"When price controls were lifted, they were replaced by a windfall profits tax intended to capture part of the gains experienced by oil companies. This tax was repealed after prices plunged in the mid-1980s.

"Whatever you think of these past policies, however, they took place in a political environment in which corporations and moneyed interests in general had far less power than they do now.

"It’s almost inconceivable that 1970s-type price controls or excess profits taxes would be imposed today. So US prices of gasoline and other oil products reflect world crude prices, and the fact that America produces a lot of oil doesn’t matter at all."

Trump's disastrous incompetence exposed with 5 obvious questions he never answered

Steven Harper,

Common Dreams
March 10, 2026

Donald Trump speaks at the White House. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

Minimally competent leaders would have considered at least five obvious questions before launching the nation into war. President Donald Trump considered none of them.

1: What’s the objective?

It’s not surprising that more than half of all Americans oppose Trump’s War. From the outset, his administration has offered numerous and contradictory justifications for it.

February 28: Trump cited 47 years of grievances, a desire to destroy Iran’s missiles, and a message that the Iranian people should “seize the moment” because now was their chance to “be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country.”

But he also said that the attack was a campaign to “eliminate the imminent nuclear threat,” although he had boasted in June that the United States had already accomplished that goal.

The same day, Trump told the Washington Post, “All I want if freedom for the people.”

United Nations Ambassador Mike Walz claimed to the UN Security Council that the US was invoking the right of self-defense in response to Iran’s imminent threat.

But the next day, Pentagon officials told congressional staff members that no intelligence supported the notion that Iran was planning to attack the US first.

March 2: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told the press that the objective was retaliation for decades of Iranian behavior, destruction of their missiles, and providing an opportunity for Iranians to “take advantage of this incredible opportunity.”

But only hours later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a new justification for the war: Israel was going to attack Iran and, if that happened, Iran would then attack US interests in the region. He made it sound as if Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had maneuvered Trump into a corner.

The next day, Trump contradicted Rubio, saying: “It was my opinion that they [Iran] were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn’t do it.” Rebutting any impression that Netanyahu had manipulated him, Trump added, “If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

Rubio complained that his earlier remarks had been taken out of context and the operation “had to happen anyway.”

March 6: Trump posted on social media that only “unconditional surrender” would end the war.

2: How long will it last?

March 1: Trump told the New York Times the operation could take “four to five weeks.” He didn’t mention the Pentagon’s concerns that the war could further deplete reserves that military strategists have said are critical for scenarios such as a conflict over Taiwan or Russian incursions into Europe.

March 2: Trump said that the war could go on longer than four to five weeks.

March 4: Hegseth said that the Iran war is “far from over” and has “only just begun.”

March 6: Trump told the New York Post he hadn’t ruled out putting “boots on the ground, if necessary.”

3: Who will lead Iran after its Supreme Leader is killed?

March 1: Trump told the New York Times he had “three very good choices” for who could lead Iran.

March 3: Trump admitted: “Most of the people we had in mind are dead… Now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.” Asked about the worst-case scenario for the war, Trump said, “I guess the worst case would be we do this and somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person.”

More than a dozen Middle East countries are now embroiled in Trump’s war, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

March 5: Trump told Axios, “I have to be involved in the appointment [of Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor], like with Delcy in Venezuela” — referring to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who remained in charge of Nicolás Maduro’s corrupt and repressive regime after the US abducted him. Trump said that Khamenei’s son — then rumored to be a leading candidate as successor — was “unacceptable to me” and “a light weight.”

The same day, he told NBC News, “We have some people who I think would do a good job.”

March 7: The Washington Post reported that a classified National Intelligence Committee study issued prior to the war found that even if the US launched a large-scale assault on Iran, it likely would not oust the Islamic republic’s entrenched military and clerical establishment.

March 9: Iran chose Khamenei’s son, a cleric expected to continue his father’s hardline policies, as the country’s Supreme Leader.

4: How would a war affect the Middle East?

Before US bombs began to fall, thousands of American citizens were in the war zone. But ahead of the strikes, the State Department didn’t issue official alerts advising Americans that the risk of travel in the region had increased.

Yael Lempert, who helped organize the evacuation of Americans in Libya in 2011, observed, “It is stunning there were no orders for authorized departure for nonessential US government employees and family members in almost all the affected diplomatic missions in the region — nor public recommendations to American citizens to depart — until days into the war.”

After attacks and counterattacks closed airspace and airports throughout the region, on Wednesday, March 4 — four days into the war — the State Department finally began evacuations by charter flight. The following day, the New York Times reported:
Until midweek, the State Department had mainly provided stranded travelers with basic information about security conditions and commercial travel options via a telephone hotline and text messages. Before Wednesday, desperate people calling the hotline got an automated message that said the US government could not help get them out of the region.

5: Could the war lead to humanitarian, economic, or geopolitical crises?

Only a week into the war, the UN humanitarian chief warned, “This is a moment of grave, grave peril.”

Iran is a country of 90 million people. US-Israel bombing has already displaced more than 100,000 of them.

Israel’s companion attack on Lebanon has displaced more than 300,000 residents.

More than a dozen countries are now embroiled in Trump’s war, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

The ripple effects span the globe as oil prices spike and Iran disrupts tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows. During his state of the union message, Trump boasted that the price of gasoline was down to $2,00 per gallon in some states. Last week, the national average price in the US was $3.41 per gallon.

Ominously, on March 6 the Washington Post reported that Russia is providing intelligence assistance to the Iranian military attacking US targets. But Hegseth is “not concerned about that.”

Asked to rate his Iran war performance on a scale of one to 10, Trump gave himself a “15.”

Introspection rarely accompanies incompetence.

Steven J. Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa: A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at thelawyerbubble.com

'Nuts!' Joe Rogan hits Trump over 'insane' Iran war

David Edwards
March 10, 2026
RAW STORY

The Joe Rogan Experience/screen grab

Podcaster Joe Rogan slammed President Donald Trump for waging an "insane" series of strikes in Iran after running for election by promising not to start wars for regime change.

During a Tuesday conversation on Rogan's podcast, author Michael Shellenberger said he had scrapped a column on the war in Iran because Trump's reasoning was unclear.

"But it's not clear that they're really out for regime change or they're just asserting power," he explained. "I mean, some of it's art of the deal, changing the person that we're negotiating with. That's Venezuela and Iran. Is it really going to change those regimes? I don't think — most people don't think so, but I'm not sure that that's what they're going for.

"Well, neither thing made any sense to me," Rogan replied. "The Venezuela thing, I mean, look, they wanted him out forever."

"They go in, kidnap him, get him out," he continued. "This one's nuts. Like, and what's happening in Tel Aviv. It's hard to know what's real and what's not because there's a lot of fake video going around and a lot of weird posts on X."

"They might say that we want that or whatever, but that's not ultimately; they're not acting on the basis of achieving regime change," Shellenberger insisted.

"But just seems so insane based on what he ran on," Rogan remarked. "I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these stupid, senseless wars, and then we have one that we can't even really clearly defined why we did it."

Internet fumes at Karoline Leavitt's Iran 'lie': 'Trump's bombing based on his feelings'

Nicole Charky-Chami
March 10, 2026
RAW STORY

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt takes questions from media members during a briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C. on March 10, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci

The internet erupted Tuesday after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt snapped at CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes and insisted President Donald Trump wasn't "making anything up" when it came to the ongoing war with Iran.

Cordes had asked Leavitt to clarify Trump's decision to launch military strikes with Israel on Iran.

"There are no U.S. leaders or Israeli leaders who are making those same claims. So is he making this up to justify his decision to go to war?" Cordes said.

Leavitt wasn't happy with the reporter's question.

"The president is not making anything up," Leavitt fired back. "Iran wanted to attack the U.S., and the president was not going to allow that to happen, and everyone in this room should be grateful for it."

Social media users responded to Leavitt's claims.

"Leavitt keeps lying, and the media keeps letting her," technologist and geographer Linda Stevens wrote on X.

"There was no threat. It was all in Trump delusional mind," nurse Ellen Hanley wrote on X.

"That’s all the president does is make crap up," retired educator Ben Adler wrote on X.

"Imagine if Jen Psaki had said nonsense like this on behalf of Biden or Robert Gibbs had said this on behalf of Obama? Insane the kinda crap they get away with saying to the media. He had a 'feeling' about launching an unprovoked and illegal war of aggression," Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo, wrote on X.

"Trump is bombing Iran based on his feelings," PatriotTakes, an X account that self-describes as dedicated to researching and exposing right-wing extremism and other threats to democracy, wrote on the platform.

"HAHAHAHAHA Every time he speaks he lies!!" Vince Wilson, liberal political commentator, wrote on X.

The UK’s Growing Involvement in the Iran War

Starmer’s Self-Defence Fudge

by Binoy Kampmark / March 10th, 2026

Wars can distract, and for leaders in political purgatory, they can be particularly useful. It remains to be seen whether the UK’s increasing involvement in the illegal war being waged on Iran by Israel and the United States will serve that purpose. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the great saviour of the British Labour Party in taking them to victory in 2024, is finding himself in sinking desperation. Being less popular than a pandemic, he has much work to do if he is to retain his premiership till and after the next election.

This deepening involvement in the Iran War has been messy. Britain, along with France and Germany, was initially clear in their joint February 28 statement that they had not participated in the strikes on Iran, despite growing questions about Britain’s role in attacks on Iran, but were “in close contact with our international partners, including the United States, Israel, and partners in the region.” Instead of condemning the pre-emptive attack on Tehran as a crime of aggression in breach of the United Nations Charter and international law, the statement went on to “condemn Iranian attacks on countries in the region in the strongest terms.”

Within a matter of hours, Starmer rebadged his country’s engagement in the conflict as a matter of self-defence under Article 51, a justification that echoes the controversial doctrine of pre-emptive war of the United Nations Charter, making what can only be regarded as a spurious use of international law – or whatever was left of it. The press release on March 1 again reiterated condemnation for Iran’s “reckless and ongoing discriminatory attacks against countries in the region”, taking no account of why Tehran was engaged in such an avenging task, despite diplomatic initiatives such as Iran’s comprehensive peace proposal. But international law permitted the UK and its allies “to use or support force in such circumstances where acting in self-defence is the only feasible means to deal with an ongoing armed attack and where the force used is necessary and proportionate.”

It followed from this that the UK had “military assets flying in the region to intercept drones or missiles targeting countries not previously involved in the conflict.” A request from Washington had also meant that his government would “facilitate specific and limited defensive action against missile facilities in Iran which were involved in launching strikes at regional allies.” The statement went on, weakly, to ward off suggestions of any “wider involvement in the broader ongoing conflict between the US, Israel and Iran.”

On March 9, in an oral statement to the House, the UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey revealed the sheer scale of British involvement. The briefest of references was made to Starmer’s justification along lines of collective self-defence under international law. To put some flesh on the bone, it was important to inflate the threat posed by the Iranian regime, a force of cruel destruction that had “slaughtered protestors in its own streets”, supplied Shahed drones to Russia in its “illegal invasion of Ukraine” and conducted cyber-attacks against Britain and plotted assassinations on it streets.

Healey confirmed that the US was using British bases to target Iranian missile sites from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. He also outlined various “defensive operations” that had taken place: the destruction of Iranian drones over Jordan by F-35s; the use of Typhoons to shoot “down targets heading towards Qatar”; and “counter-drone units defeating further attacks against coalition bases in Iraq.” Various “defensive air sorties in support of the UAE” were also being conducted. Given this burgeoning list, it is surely a matter of time, given the prolongation of conflict, for Starmer to join the full-blooded effort and hit sites in Iran proper. The pretence to legality will have all but collapsed by that point.

The US President Donald Trump, for his part, has been petulant, scornful of Starmer for not doing more. “This is not Winston Churchill,” he moaned to journalists over the PM’s initial tardiness in permitting the use of British bases to launch strikes on Iran. In a social media post, Trump revealed that the UK, “our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East.” With a bitchy turn, the President informed the PM that “we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember.” He had “no need for people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”

The dangers of closer involvement with the US in this war should be all too clear for Starmer and the Labour Party.In March 2003, as a human rights lawyer, he warned the government of Tony Blair that pre-emptive action against Iraq could repeat the mistakes of the disastrous US war against Iraq.“The mere fact that Iraq has a capacity to attack at some specified time in the future is not enough.” No one believed that Iraq was imminently about to attack the UK or its allies, and any claim to self-defence “would sit uncomfortably with the US position that military action is justified to destroy such weapons of mass destruction as Iraq may have, and to bring about a change of leadership.”

Despite these warnings, Blair joined President George W. Bush to attack Iraq, finding no WMDs and inviting the deserved opprobrium of the international law community, while deeper motivations including oil and geopolitical interests behind the Iraq invasion remained widely debated. The public inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the war, chaired by John Chilcot, noted that “the circumstances in which it was decided there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory”. The phase of planning and preparations for a post-Saddam also proved “wholly inadequate”. But the inquiry report also made an unimpeachable observation troublingly relevant as Britain gets ever more involved in the current crime of aggression: “The US and UK are close allies, but the relationship between the two is unequal.”

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

Britain’s Role in Attacks on Cyprus, Venezuela, and Iran

by Alfie Howis / March 9th, 2026

Britain’s role in the recent machinations of the US empire has been central, despite going underreported and little criticised. Britain has a significant hand in the ongoing US war of aggression against Iran and their recent invasion of Venezuela. Britain’s empire and overseas bases, and associated intelligence and surveillance capabilities, are cornerstones of its contribution to these ongoing wars. Just as Britain’s colonial bases in occupied Cyprus served an intelligence and surveillance role in the Gaza genocide, so to did they help surveil Iran and prepare intelligence in preparation for US attacks, and are now being used as a staging post for those attacks. The ongoing UK-Mauritius Chagos Islands deal and subsequent US-UK rift over Diego Garcia’s use in the attack on Iran shows the potential for decolonial practice in international law and is a case that the US-UK Bases off Cyprus campaign can learn from.

RAF Akrotiri has been very important in the US attacks on Iran to date. For example, it provided a base for air refuelling planes that refuelled the bombers that struck Iran’s nuclear sites in June last year, and the bases likely provided intelligence and surveillance support for this operation too. Between March and May last year, the base also refuelled US bombers, which attacked Yemen, an attack in which the RAF also directly participated. The base is used for all UK bombing of Iraq and Syria, which still happens sometimes, and it was almost certainly an intelligence hub for the American support for the successful counter-revolution in Syria. British F-35s are currently stationed in Akrotiri, reportedly to conduct ELINT (electronic intelligence) against Iran, essentially to use their advanced sensors to gather intelligence on Iranian air defences as part of the current war. Any strike on Iran would commence with SEAD (suppression of enemy air defence) operations, necessitating mapping those air defences out beforehand, which is what the F-35s are doing. Now the British government has allowed the use of the bases on Cyprus for attacks on Iran, despite earlier denying this. GCHQ and the NSA’s main Middle Eastern intelligence base is in the British base area, which is extremely important to any military operations in the region. The NSA controls part of these bases more than GCHQ, meaning that there would be no oversight of US intelligence operations by the UK, let alone democratic accountability for the people of Britain or Cyprus to decide if they want this kind of thing happening on their land and in their political jurisdictions.

Britain’s role in US wars during the Trump administration has been much more significant than many people realise. Britain actually suspended Caribbean and Eastern Pacific-related intelligence sharing with the US in November 2025 because of the US strikes on fishing boats, which killed innocent people. The British state was briefing, ie, telling journalists anonymously, that this was because the strikes were illegal murders that Britain didn’t want to be implicated in legally, which was, of course, a self-interested position, not a moral one.

Yet by the start of this year, Britain had started to contribute to the Southern Spear mission directly, this time in relation to the oil blockade of Venezuela. Essentially, the UK drew a line between these different parts of US actions in the area, even though the tanker seizures are clearly illegal too. There were at least 4 examples where this is evidence of a direct British role in the seizure of tankers. Britain helped the US seize three tankers in the Caribbean with a total of 2.5 million barrels of oil, the M Sophia, the Olina, and the Sagitta, between January 7th and January 20th. Britain contributed to this with surveillance flights, probably operating from British colonies in the Caribbean, from Florida, and from the Azores.

So once again, we see the intelligence and surveillance role that Britain plays in the imperial alliance; in lieu of a powerful navy, Britain seems to have specialised to an extent in its role. This type of activity is by its nature quite secretive – it would be politically difficult to have sent navy ships to interdict ships off Venezuela. But the surveillance contribution, enabled by the remaining empire’s geographical footprint, has not been picked up by the media here at all, and is also pretty unaccountable to parliament, and not subject to much democratic oversight. This, of course, mirrors Britain’s role in the Gaza genocide, where its surveillance contributions have been shrouded in secrecy and the details hidden even from MPs who are supposed to have some oversight of the military or at least its participation in foreign wars.

The other case is that of the ship, the Bella 1, renamed the Marinera, which the US seized in the North Atlantic, between Iceland and Scotland, on January 7th. This was a Russian-flagged tanker sailing from Venezuela to Russia. What happened here was more direct – US special forces flew to Britain, which was tracked by flight trackers following known special ops planes. Then, they undertook the seizure operation after flying from Britain in helicopters, and meeting US Navy ships. Britain provided more intense logistical and surveillance help in this instance, as it happened so close to Britain. The ship was stolen and brought to Scotland, and the 26 crew were kidnapped and falsely imprisoned in Scotland, with most being able to leave after the US had determined they were allowed to.

The captain and first mate of this ship, the captain being a Georgian citizen, were not allowed to go home by the US once detained in Scotland. The wife of the captain made an appeal to the Scottish courts, arguing that her husband was being illegally detained without the right to the proper extradition procedures. A Scottish court granted an interim interdict, an emergency injunction, prohibiting the removal of the captain from Scotland, whilst the case was heard and the courts made their decisions. However, immediately after that court decision, the very same night, the two men were taken from Scotland to a US Navy ship, which set sail for the US. A couple of days ago, the captain had his first court hearing in Puerto Rico, where he will be transferred to DC and put on trial for ‘preventing a lawful seizure’ and failure to stop the vessel during the Coast Guard chase. The Scottish government condemned the US actions, but the Green Party of Scotland led a more serious analysis of the situation in the Scottish parliament, arguing that the US had basically illegally kidnapped people from Scotland, ignoring the courts.

There are a few things to pick up on here. Firstly, like all the US actions around Venezuela and the tankers, there was no legal basis for them to do any of this. A ship isn’t ‘illegal’ or part of a ‘dark fleet’ just because it’s ‘sanctioned’ by one country. Venezuela and Russia are, in theory, sovereign nations that can conduct trade and sail ships between them; no one gets to randomly call any of that illegal. There is this pretense that somehow these sanctions represent international law, but they are just edicts by one country, with no relation to international law, treaties, the UN, or any multilateral decision-making body. In fact, Bella 1 was not even sanctioned by the UK, so what was the possible legal justification for the UK’s involvement in this?

The second part is the US flouting of Scottish and British law. Scotland has its own judicial system that is separate from the rest of the UK. It is under the UK Supreme Court and the British Parliament, but it can exercise judicial authority otherwise. Likewise, the Scottish government has a high level of autonomy within the UK, with its own elected parliament and government. The US violating the law of places where its troops are based is pretty normal, take all the murders and rapes that go along with US bases abroad, cases that have come to prominence in Japan and Korea, especially. A US diplomat’s wife killed a young man in a car crash near a US base a few years ago in England, and flew back to the US, never to face any consequences.

So, regardless of UK law and international law, the US is allowed, and even invited, to do whatever it wants in Britain, and can commission the British military to help. The British military is helping the US commit crimes in Britain, crimes under British law, in the case of the kidnapping of the sailors from Scotland. The British military is literally helping a foreign power defy civilian courts here. In the UK, we are facing the trumping of our own government and legal system by US imperial diktats, and our military and certainly this government, are choosing to actively promote it. It is a serious crisis of sovereignty for the UK. It is more important to think of the imperial violence that we are dishing out to others rather than ruminating too much on the implications of that violence in the metropole, but there are the seeds of a domestic political and legal crisis here, which could one day help to undermine Britain’s role in all of this.

There was relatively big news in mid-February about the UK denying the US the use of its bases for their coming renewed war on Iran. Namely, bases in England and Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean. Trump posted angrily about this and again withdrew his support for the Chagos Islands deal. To summarise the current situation regarding the Chagos Islands, there’s a UK colony in the middle of the Indian Ocean called the British Indian Ocean Territory. After WW2, the US leased the main island, Diego Garcia, as an airbase, and it’s now one of the most important US bases in the world due to its location. It was one of the CIA’s black sites and has supported attacks on the region before, including on Iran. Mauritius went through international courts to force the UK to give it back to them and won, so in 2025, the UK government made an agreement to hand over the territory but lease the base back from Mauritius for 99 years, guaranteeing the base’s status is basically unchanged.

This is good news that there is some kind of rift between Britain and the US on this, but it does raise some interesting questions, and these denials have been rescinded anyway. Namely, can the UK always exercise this right of denial, because then it would proactively have had to have proactively approved US use of bases for attacking Iran last year, or did they approve the torture black site on Diego Garcia, do they approve the use of UK bases as transit for all this equipment to the Middle East which will be used to attack Iran anyway? Secondly, Trump posting that he ‘may have to use’ the Fairford and Diego Garcia bases to attack Iran, despite apparently being told he can’t, should be a big deal! Again, the question of UK sovereignty over its own land and military resources comes up – can we even say no to the US, is it possible at all? And will this government do anything about it if their request is ignored – highly unlikely.

However, it turns out that this whole issue may have originated in an order to the civil service in the foreign office, telling them to act as if the Chagos Islands deal had already gone through. In this case, it seems that the UK government asked the Mauritian government about the US request, and they must have said no, and so Britain said no. Alternatively, the foreign office may have said no based on the specific wording of the deal, where Britain must consult Mauritius on an attack on a third state from Diego Garcia, and have judged Trump’s intended actions to be an attack on the Iranian state, rather than self-defence, which would not require consultation.

This then makes it seem all the less benevolent. This government and the previous government, which started negotiations with Mauritius over this deal, have faced attacks from the right in the UK for giving away British land and throwing away an important base. The government has justified the deal not because it is the right thing to do, or by accepting any of the principles of the arguments around it, but instead, they justify it because they say it is the only way to keep the base operating. They claim that because of the ICJ ruling, they would be forced to cede the territory very soon, and so it was best to make a deal first. We don’t typically have much faith in these organs of international law, as they were set up to enforce the imperial order. However, it is possible for the subjects of that order to assert some agency and attempt to use that system in an insurgent manner. In this case, it is Mauritius and much of the world supporting it, which has forced this to happen, and indirectly has caused this rift and may prevent the base from being used for these attacks. I don’t think this will ultimately work, and the US would probably just use them anyway, but these are all interesting things to consider in relation to the base question. It seems that the UK is now allowing the use of Diego Garcia for attacks on Iran, which it deems ‘defensive’ even though that definition includes strikes on ground targets. The potential utility of this model of handover deal, despite keeping the base open, does then seem to restrict the uses of the base in line with aspects of Mauritian sovereignty, disrupting the bases in some way or another, which is a big decolonial win the left has not yet fully grasped.

We could then conclude that a big concerted international campaign against blatant colonial practices may actually work in damaging the effectiveness of these colonial overseas bases to some extent. Mauritius exploited the inherent contradictions between international law on the one hand and the bases’ colonial nature on the other, to build a campaign, get almost everyone onside, and force a reckoning in the international courts, which is binding. So for Cyprus, although it is a different situation in many ways, we can see similarities, and we can learn from what’s happened around Diego Garcia. The fact that the bases are a colonial relic is important because it gives our campaign the leverage to say that this is obviously wrong and obviously contradicts the international law that you, the imperial powers, set up, and this gives us the opportunity to build alliances based on that. That is actually much easier and much less radical than talking about the bases’ role in genocide, which seems wholly exempt from the international law system, which shows how dehumanised Palestinians and Gaza are.

The US-UK Bases Off Cyprus Campaign that CODEPINK is running has those two integral parts to it, working on the bases in Cyprus’ contribution to genocide and imperial wars, and their inherent status as a colony on occupied land. Linking those two parts of the base question is the central point of what we’re trying to do and trying to expose, as a step towards practical change to the bases’ status.

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Alfie Howis is an activist and writer with CODEPINK London. Read other articles by Alfie.

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