Look Forward To The Approaching Day

Peter Hitchens writes:

The panic flight of the US Air Force from Fairford has ended an awkward partnership begun when we were bankrupt and alone in 1940. We and America just don't need each other in that way any more. Mr Trump's USA – America First and America Alone – is happy to go its own way in its aggressive adventures. Good. When Donald Trump opened his assault on Iran, the world was full of supposedly 'Right-wing' commentators, urging him on and denouncing the evils of the Islamic Republic. How silly they all look now. The usual propaganda was deployed. Iran was a brutal tyranny and we were spreading freedom and democracy.

We didn't succeed in this of course, as anyone at all well-informed could have told Mr Trump. And the fact that the 'West' is allied with more than one such despotism, and does not care, was avoided or ignored. Quite honestly how anyone can be in alliance with Saudi Arabia and Turkey (as we are) and think he is serving the causes of democracy, law and freedom, I do not know. They are at least as nasty as Iran and Russia. Sir Keir Starmer, then our Premier, was excoriated by those militant voices for being cautious about allowing the USAF base in Fairford to be used in this war. Alas, he quickly gave in and pretended that the giant bombers based there were engaged in 'defensive' operations as they unloaded high explosive on Iranian targets. This fell into the class of things of which it can be said 'if you can believe that, you can believe anything'.

So now where are we? Iran is not defeated. It has hit America hard in its Gulf bases, destroying crucial, highly costly and irreplaceable US military equipment and facilities. It has survived questionable murders of its own leadership. Is murder too hard a word? I do not think so. Among the dead were wholly innocent relatives of the assassinated leaders. Let us call things by their proper names – for we would surely do so if Iran did the same to our side. Every so often, President Trump stirs himself into a new rage and threatens to wipe Iran from the map. So far, he has not done so but I do not think any of us can be quite sure that he will not try. No more terrifying figure has ever held the presidency of the USA. 

But this season of folly has finally ripped up the fiction that was the 'special relationship' between us and the USA. Anyone who still believes in this great gloopy tripe sandwich only needs to remember Mr Trump's recent crass call for a united Ireland. Americans would turn and rend us if we did the same sort of thing to them – say, supporting Mexican demands for the return of the lands Uncle Sam violently seized from them in 1848. So there is no need for any more fake smiles and awkward meetings. American public figures are increasingly willing to be as rude and dismissive about this country in public as they have long been in private. And Donald Trump's USA no longer needs to carry what is left of our armed forces in its baggage, to pretend that it has allies.

I am not sorry. This country will never again be the great power it was in 1914, or even in 1939. But we can be an important and influential nation again, once we struggle free of the obsolete American alliance. The sudden disappearance of US bombers from Fairford shows that they never really needed it to bomb Iran. Modern in-flight refuelling made it unnecessary years ago. Their desire to implicate us in the increasingly disastrous Iran war was the only reason for using Fairford this time. Now they don't even want to do that any more. Good. Breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to the approaching day when we finally declare independence from the USA.