Leading article

The whole truth, please

17 November 2007

What does Gordon Brown really think about foreign policy

It is no less idle, however, to think that sanctions are certain to achieve their objective. Realistically, the Security Council, with its Russian and Chinese vetoes, is unlikely to pass resolutions sufficiently aggressive to make Tehran think again. In these circumstances, and with oil at around $100 a barrel, it is far from certain that Iran would back down — even if the European Union caught up with the Americans and imposed stringent sanctions on investment in Iran’s oil and gas sectors and barred financial transactions. The removal as Iran’s nuclear negotiator of Ali Larijani, who believed that Tehran should talk out the clock, suggests that the internal balance has shifted to those who are convinced that Iraq is the Iranian window of opportunity, and want to make a dash for the bomb.

This raises the pressing question of what, precisely, Britain should do if sanctions are not sufficient. This is something that neither main party wants to discuss openly and fully, as it splits both of them wide open. Mr Cameron is increasingly emerging as an old-fashioned Conservative realist in the Douglas Hurd tradition: note both his Berlin speech and the appointment of the securocrat Dame Pauline Neville-Jones to the Tory frontbench. But Mr Cameron’s two closest allies in the shadow Cabinet, George Osborne and Michael Gove, have a quite different view of the world, grasping the daunting scale and challenge of the struggle against Islamism: a view that Mr Cameron initially appeared to share during his leadership campaign in 2005. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, is also deeply exercised by Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It is hard to see how these men could condemn the Prime Minister if he chose to support the United States in addressing this threat.

Mr Brown, though, knows such a decision would force him to choose between the special relationship with America and his special relationship with the Labour party. The party would erupt if another of its leaders joined President Bush in launching a fresh military strike in the Middle East. Labour backbenchers would be only marginally more forgiving if the Commander-in-Chief was, say, the newly elected Democrat President, Hillary Clinton.

The political case for caution is strong, but the imperative for leadership should be stronger still for a statesman. If Mr Brown and Mr Cameron want Britain to play the role on the world stage that its seat on the Security Council and history demand, then they will have to start thinking beyond sanctions and party management. Mr Blair was roundly accused of blindly following President Bush. But the present uncertainty — wait and see, in effect — risks reducing this country to the ignominious position of being able to respond only to the proposals of others. Britain may soon discover what it feels like to be a poodle, in the truest sense.