How Britain could be dragged into the Israel-Iran conflict

Yahoo

14 hours ago

It was the moment that Benjamin Netanyahu had awaited for decades: at 3am on Friday, the Israeli prime minister's forces launched a massive attack on Iran, aiming to wipe out swathes of its nuclear weapons programme.
Israel said its goal was to 'roll back' Tehran's programme, which it considers an existential threat, and has signalled that more strikes will follow, which could destroy the nuclear project altogether.
But as the dust settles following Israel's initial salvo of air strikes, the risk of this operation unleashing an all-out regional war – and one that could even drag in Britain – looks higher than ever.
On Friday night, Iran unleashed dozens of Iranian ballistic missiles towards Israel, the IDF said, with explosions heard in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and at least two civilians killed.
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Iran's foreign ministry has signalled that it will retaliate, not only against Israel but also the United States, which it says 'approved' the attack and serves as Israel's 'primary patron'.
'The US government, as the primary patron of this regime, will also bear responsibility for the dangerous repercussions of the Zionist regime's reckless actions,' it warned.
Those words could open the door to a large-scale Iranian response against US military bases in the Middle East, including those in Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE.
Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: 'This is the biggest military attack Iran has faced since the war with Iraq in the 1980s, and is being viewed by Iran as a declaration of war.
'In Iran's view, there is no way that the Netanyahu government acted without a US green light.'
Mr Netanyahu confirmed this on Friday, saying that Israel informed the United States about its plans to attack Iran before carrying them out.
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On Friday, The New York Times reported that the US government would 'soon' send additional fighter jets to the Middle East, suggesting that the Trump administration expects attacks shortly from Iran or its proxies that will require a military response.
US officials said that the Pentagon is also 'positioning warships and other military assets' in the region to protect American troops from a possible attack.
The Iranian statement also claimed that 'grave and far-reaching consequences' will be inflicted on Mr Netanyahu's 'supporters' – raising the possibility that key allies Britain and France might be dragged into regional conflict as well.
While the UK is not currently planning to take part in defending Israel from Iranian counter-attacks, Iran's allusion to Western 'supporters' suggests that British military bases in the region could also be considered legitimate targets by Tehran as it draws up plans for retaliation. The UK has air bases in Qatar, the UAE, Oman and Cyprus, as well as a naval support facility in Bahrain.
There is already a precedent for the UK launching air strikes on Iran's proxies, such as in April when the RAF used Typhoon jets to strike Houthi drone production sites in Yemen.
If Iran were to target UK military sites as part of a wider assault on Israel and its key allies, Britain could react in kind by striking Iranian targets with fighter jets from one of its Gulf state bases, which are on the other side of the Persian Gulf from Iran.
Tehran will be under immense pressure to respond forcefully to the latest attack, and says the US will soon 'receive a forceful slap'.
But the regime has been left weakened by a string of catastrophic blows over the past two years to its main proxy groups and regional allies, and will be carefully weighing its options for a response.
Hezbollah, the regime's biggest proxy group in Lebanon, was decimated by Israel last year, and its closest regional ally, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, was overthrown in December.
On Friday, Hezbollah announced that it will not retaliate against Israel on Iran's behalf, underlining how severely it has been weakened by a wave of Israeli airstrikes and pager-bomb attacks, which decapitated its leadership and most senior commanders.
In Yemen, the Houthi militia group recently halted its attacks on US vessels in the Red Sea under a ceasefire deal with Washington, and may be reluctant to break that deal only for the sake of rushing to Iran's defences.
But experts say that if the Houthis break that ceasefire and rejoin the fray, it could significantly increase the likelihood of British involvement, due to a need to prevent a repeat of the havoc that Houthi strikes caused for trade vessels in the Red Sea in 2023 and 2024.
Dr Burcu Ozcelik, a senior fellow from the Royal United Services Institute security think tank, said: 'Any such move would reverberate far beyond Yemen, threatening maritime security in the Red Sea and risking direct entanglement of the US and UK in a widening regional conflict.'In Moscow, Iran's strongest ally, officials have released a lukewarm response to the Israeli operation, which expressed 'concern' about the 'cynical' aggression – hardly a rallying cry to join Tehran in a regional war.
In other words, Tehran is diplomatically isolated at present, which could reduce the risk of other key global players, other than the US, being dragged into the fighting.
John Foreman, a former UK defence attache to Moscow, said Vladimir Putin was unlikely to get drawn into a Middle Eastern conflict in defence of his Iranian allies.
'Russia's relationship with the UAE and Saudi Arabia is probably more important to it. Iran has always been under the cosh, and now I don't think Russia wants to be between the Americans and the Iranians,' he said.
He added that much of the Russian military support that was expected to be given to Tehran as thanks for drone shipments for Putin's war on Ukraine has not materialised.
'If you look at what Russia has given Iran, it has never given them the advanced fighters or the advanced air defence that Iran probably needed,' he said.
As for a counter-attack coming directly from Iran, this could involve ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel and US assets in the region.
Previous waves of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel, in April and October 2024, caused limited damage, in large part due to air defence and interception provided by Western allies, including the UK.
But there is a key difference: Iran's April salvo was responding to Israel bombing an Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, while October's was a response to Israel killing Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, and Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader.
Those previous escalations pale in comparison to Friday's direct attacks on Iranian soil, which have not only severely damaged Iran's nuclear facilities but also wiped out some of the country's most senior military commanders – including the chief of staff of the armed forces.
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Iran may also consider asymmetrical forms of retaliation such as cyber-attacks or harassing shipping assets in the Strait of Hormuz to drive up oil prices.
Renewed action from Israel in the coming days that goes even further than Friday's attack, and which might occur before Iran manages to respond to the first round, cannot be ruled out.
On Friday afternoon, Israel continued to pummel Iran with air strikes targeting surface-to-surface missile launch sites, no doubt seeking to limit Iran's capacity to respond.
As of Saturday, Israel appeared to have severely damaged, but not completely demolished, Iran's Natanz site, the main nuclear facility. It targeted other key sites such as the Fordow enrichment facility near Tehran, but not the Isfahan nuclear technology centre, which employs thousands of nuclear scientists.
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The name of Israel's operation – Rising Lion – may even be an allusion to pre-Revolution Iran, as the lion is a symbol of the Iranian monarchy that was overthrown in 1979.
This potentially hints that Israel's true goal goes far beyond suppressing the Iranian nuclear programme and could envisage the downfall of the Islamic Republic.
If Israel's operation expands even further – and Donald Trump has suggested that it will unless Iran comes to the negotiating table – it could be considered by Iran to not just be a dire threat, but an existential one.
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