After a week or so of wearing media coverage about the deterioration of the Anglo-American relationship and the belated decision to deploy Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon to Cyprus, it was time to move the conversation on.
On a visit to the UK’s permanent military headquarters in Northwood, north-west London, the defence secretary, John Healey, asked two senior British military officers if there was “any sign of a link between Russia and Iran” in the sprawling conflict that has suddenly engulfed the Middle East.
It was obvious Healey knew what answer he was going to get. The night before, it emerged, an unspecified number of drones had struck a coalition base, used by British and other anti-Islamic State forces, in Erbil, northern Iraq. Though there are no reports of serious casualties, it was a relatively rare hit on a western target.
That the drones got through was, the minister was told, a reflection of a greater tactical sophistication – know-how passed from Russia to Iran and its proxies. Lt Gen Nick Perry, the chief of joint operations, acknowledged that the more effective tactics had “proven problematic” as the war entered a new phase.
Iran has not collapsed quickly and instead is showing signs of wanting to endure and resist despite the intense bombardment from the US and Israel. However, launch rates of Iran’s feared ballistic missiles have dropped by more than 90% since the end of last month: six were fired at the UAE on Wednesday compared with 137 on the day the war began.
As a result, Tehran and its regional allies are shifting towards Shahed 136 and other drones in their effort to inflict economic and military pain on the US and its allies. Drone launch numbers are also down, but the 39 fired at the UAE on Wednesday – the heavily targeted Emirates publishes the clearest data – still represent a meaningful threat.
The Shahed 136, with its distinctive delta wing and noisy engine, was designed by Iran at the beginning of the decade, and then sold to Russia, which needed a new weapon to terrorise Ukraine after its initial attempt at conquest failed. In 2025, Russia fired about 50,000 at its neighbour, endlessly refining how it could use them.
There still are distinct limits to Russia’s willingness to help Iran, not least because Vladimir Putin wants Donald Trump’s help in forcing Ukraine to make peace on his terms. But it is hardly surprising that piloting tips appear to have been passed on. There have been reports, from the US, that Russia is providing targeting information to Iran, though unsurprisingly Putin told Trump on Monday that was not true.
By making an active connection between Iran and Russia, Healey links together the war in Ukraine with the war in the Middle East. Support for Ukraine, in its struggle for freedom against Moscow, remains relatively high in the UK – quite unlike the war against Iran, which is so unpopular that even Trump ally Nigel Farage decided to say this week he was against becoming involved.
It also gives the defence secretary something else to discuss. Recriminations over the failure to deploy a Royal Navy warship to the eastern Mediterranean before the US and Israel attacked have reached the point where Sir Rich Knighton, the chief of defence staff, is being blamed: there may be a “a fatal collapse” of confidence in him at No 10, according to a report in this week’s Spectator.
In reality, the late dispatch of HMS Dragon is diplomatically embarrassing but not, at least so far, militarily significant. Nevertheless, Healey had to answer questions about whether he had confidence in the head of the armed forces, a man appointed by Keir Starmer only last June. “I have total confidence,” Healey said, the kind of statement that nobody wants to leave as the final headline.
A challenge for Healey is that the UK may feel it has to become more militarily engaged in the future, perhaps to protect merchant shipping in the strait of Hormuz, perhaps in the event of an unexpected Iranian escalation. But in the current climate, arguing – as British politicians have done for decades – that greater action is necessary simply to help out the US, is hardly likely to be persuasive in itself.
The idea that there is a covert Russian-Iranian alignment is also one that the UK might like to reinforce in the minds of the White House, though making progress will be difficult. Anglo-American relations have degenerated to the point that Trump is happy to describe Starmer as “not Winston Churchill”, so British politicians may struggle to be listened to.
In any event, after Putin had told Trump that Russia was not helping Iran, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, said: “We can take them at their word.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
