On the very day the United States began bombing Iran from an airbase north of London, Donald Trump told the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that... "we don't need" that country's help in the war against Iran. Trump also issued a threatening "we don't forget" in his message, causing some surprise in the UK. After all, the US entered the Second World War more than two years after it had started and not of its own volition. In the case of the European front, the US only joined the conflict when Adolf Hitler declared war on it.
With his obsessive use of capital letters, Trump wrote a message to Starmer on his social media platform Truth Social, concluding with a resounding "we don't need people to join Wars we have already won". Before that conclusion, Trump vented in a text stating that "the UK, once our Great Ally, perhaps the Greatest of all, is finally paying attention to the idea of sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East."
With this reference, Trump refers to the preparations for one of the two aircraft carriers — not both — owned by London, the Prince of Wales, to set sail. The British government has not disclosed the reasons for these operations. However, given their apparent urgency, it seems likely that the ship will participate in the war.
However, for Trump, this is irrelevant. "Okay, Prime Minister, we don't need them," he says, once again using the plural even though, as far as is known, the twin of the 'Prince of Wales', the 'Queen Elizabeth', is in dry dock in Scotland, undergoing a modernization process that will not be completed for several months.
Trump's fury stems from Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government decision to prohibit the US from using its bases in Diego Garcia — in the Indian Ocean — and in Fairford — in Gloucestershire, about 120 kilometers from London — for the B-1, B-2, and B-52 strategic bombers against Iran.
The ban was based on London's view that the Israeli-American attack violated International Law. After 36 hours of bombings, London authorized the use of both bases for US planes to bomb Iranian missile and drone launch sites against regional countries.
On Thursday afternoon, the first three B-1s arrived at Fairford, from where they carried out their first bombing of Iran yesterday. By nightfall, at least one more of those planes was flying from the US towards that base. From Fairford to Tehran, there are about 4,250 kilometers in a straight line, approximately a third of the distance from Dyess base in Texas, where most of the B-1s are stationed. There have been no reported missions from Diego Garcia at this time.