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Is anyone on Pb still of the view the UK should have joined the war?

We should have sent the RAF to attack Iranian missile sites as Kemi rightly said. If Trump commits ground troops we should join Israel and provide them with support from the air in my view too as that would be the only way to topple the regime.

However as Starmer is in power neither will happen as he is sticking to his line offensive actions in Iran are not authorised under international law

If we'd done that we'd be counting body bags in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh and any other town or city

Sleepers in our midst revenge lone rangers martyrs

Forget all that. That is not the reason we should not be doing this. If Iran was a genuine threat to us and we needed to change the regime there then attacks in the UK are simply part of that scenario and one we have to deal with.

The real issue here is we should not be attacking Iran or supporting the US and Israel in attacking them. They are not and were not a threat to ourselves, Europe or the US. They did not attack us. They did not attack the US or Israel. They were attacked and we should not be supporting or condoning the aggressors.

I think you can make an argument that they were attacking Israel fairly regularly via their proxies

Well yes, but by the same rote you could say Russia has been attacking us for decades. Nobody has suggested bombing St Petersburg in response.

Is anyone on Pb still of the view the UK should have joined the war?

We should have sent the RAF to attack Iranian missile sites as Kemi rightly said. If Trump commits ground troops we should join Israel and provide them with support from the air in my view too as that would be the only way to topple the regime.

However as Starmer is in power neither will happen as he is sticking to his line offensive actions in Iran are not authorised under international law

The US does not have a clear war aim. It is unclear how much they are aiming to topple the regime. Should we commit military forces to try to achieve our war aim (regime change) if we can't agree with the US what the war aims are?

If they commit ground troops yes as that shows they want to topple the regime

Committing ground troops does not show they want to topple the regime. Committing ground troops doesn't suddenly mean Trump gains some cognitive clarity. He gives multiple different and contradictory rationales for the war within the same press conference. He has often talked about a deal that leaves the current regime in power, which is of course what he did in Venezuela.

He didn't launch a full scale invasion of Venezuela to topple the regime, just captured Maduro who was succeeded by his VP. Little different to his strikes so far just killing the Supreme Leader and putting his son in his place. Ground troops show he is serious

“Tactics without strategy is just the noise before defeat.”

I can see no strategy here, and we would simply be throwing lives away for no reason, if we got involved.

It may be that we, and other powers, will have no choice but to get involved, but that’s a decision that should only be taken after careful thought.

If the strategy is to remove the regime, then Trump deploying ground troops would support that.

However our involvement is all theoretical at the moment as Starmer has made clear he does not believe international law justifies the US and Israeli strikes against Iran. So it would take probably a Reform led government propped up by a Kemi led Tories for the UK to even back offensive strikes against Iran let alone sending in UK ground troops and that is not going to happen for at least 2 or 3 years and only if Labour lose the next general election

...and is a very good reason why, when it comes to it, the voters will not go for any kind of Reform government.

As for the US midterms, I am beginning to wonder whether all of these AI forecasts might not be rather tame. Extraordinary and probably illegal and even unconstitutional measures by Trump are being answered by large-scale and growing resistance. The economic catastrophe of tariffs has just been joined by exactly the kind of war that Trump promised to avoid, coupled with vulgarity and brutality to friend and foe alike that seems almost literally demented. This seems to me to be the kind of election that could throw up some earthquake results, and all of these scenarios seem based on the input of the relative stability of the past, rather than some unexpectedly dramatic future shift, which certainly could happen now. AI is shaped by the past, and that may end up being a poor guide to future prospects.

Is anyone on Pb still of the view the UK should have joined the war?

We should have sent the RAF to attack Iranian missile sites as Kemi rightly said. If Trump commits ground troops we should join Israel and provide them with support from the air in my view too as that would be the only way to topple the regime.

However as Starmer is in power neither will happen as he is sticking to his line offensive actions in Iran are not authorised under international law

The US does not have a clear war aim. It is unclear how much they are aiming to topple the regime. Should we commit military forces to try to achieve our war aim (regime change) if we can't agree with the US what the war aims are?

If they commit ground troops yes as that shows they want to topple the regime

Committing ground troops does not show they want to topple the regime. Committing ground troops doesn't suddenly mean Trump gains some cognitive clarity. He gives multiple different and contradictory rationales for the war within the same press conference. He has often talked about a deal that leaves the current regime in power, which is of course what he did in Venezuela.

He didn't launch a full scale invasion of Venezuela to topple the regime, just captured Maduro who was succeeded by his VP. Little different to his strikes so far just killing the Supreme Leader and putting his son in his place. Ground troops show he is serious

“Tactics without strategy is just the noise before defeat.”

I can see no strategy here, and we would simply be throwing lives away for no reason, if we got involved.

It may be that we, and other powers, will have no choice but to get involved, but that’s a decision that should only be taken after careful thought.

If the strategy is to remove the regime, then Trump deploying ground troops would support that.

However our involvement is all theoretical at the moment as Starmer has made clear he does not believe international law justifies the US and Israeli strikes against Iran. So it would take probably a Reform led government propped up by a Kemi led Tories for the UK to even back offensive strikes against Iran let alone sending in UK ground troops and that is not going to happen for at least 2 or 3 years and only if Labour lose the next general election. By then Trump may have removed the regime anyway

If Reform go into an election proposing to put ground troops in Iran, they ain't going to win the election!

Starmer needs to get ahead of this oil crisis. Do some unpopular stuff that people will come to appreciate and will signal this is a big deal.

Cut speed limits, mandate wfh where possible, introduce carpool lanes all over the place...

Tories and Reform will oppose on reflex and it will show he's the serious politician thinking about national interest.

Better still, apply speed limits to ICE vehicles only, thereby encouraging the switch to EVs.

I am Ed Milliband and claim my £5.

Genius. I’m annoyed I didn’t think of that.

Similar policy - traffic lights to switch to red if they detect speeding. No fine, you get where you want to be faster if you drive slower, and it affects the part of the road where a fatal collision with a pedestrian or cyclist is most likely to happen.