The Grand Unified Theory

~Two random-ish headlines from today's Times - London, that is, not New York. First:

UK blocking Trump from using RAF bases for strikes on Iran
The disagreement over the use of British sites is behind the US president's withdrawal of support for the Chagos Islands deal

Second:

Andrew's arrest is the worst constitutional crisis in a century
The King has to deal with a far bigger threat than have any of his recent forebears

In the scheme of things, these are the same story. Almost everything is these days.

Set aside for the moment whether the Pentagon bombing Iran will accomplish any meaningful strategic objectives of the United States. I am not myself persuaded - and, granted that Lindsey Graham has the ear of the President and I don't, the last three-quarters of a century of comprehensively bungled warmongering suggests how moving on from Pushtun goatherds to Putin's drones to nuclear mullahs is likely to work out. Be that as it may, if you account for forty per cent of the entire planet's military spending, it would be nice to be able to use some of "your" bases.

RAF Fairford, for example, despite its name, is the USAF's only airfield for heavy bombers in Britain and Europe. In essence, the Yanks run the joint - save for the Brits having a yea or nay on its use for combat operations and getting to hold the Royal International Air Tattoo there every July. Thus, in April 1986 the Ministry of Defence had to sign off on President Reagan's punitive bombing of Libya in retaliation for Colonel Gaddafi's attack on a West Berlin discothèque frequented by American soldiers. Four decades later, Keir Starmer is taking time out of his hectic schedule of undertipping his Ukrainian rent-boys in order to deny similar permission to Reagan's successor.

So you can understand why President Trump is not terribly assured by Sir Keir's supposed "ninety-nine-year lease" with the increasingly Sinophile Mauritians under which the Pentagon will allegedly continue to have access to facilities in the soon-to-be dissolved British Indian Ocean Territory. Diego Garcia has proved indispensable to almost all America's wars of recent decades, so who knows whether that's good news or bad.

But what's changed between bombing Gaddafi in 1986 and bombing Khamenei in 2026?