Two weeks ago, I asked what kind of prime minister Boris Johnson might be and whether he could be ‘the great disruptor’ on foreign policy, defying standard practices and elite assumptions as Donald Trump has. I think I might have my answer. On Trump’s decision to take out Iranian terrorist-in-chief Qasem Soleimani, the Prime Minister was silent for two days. When he finally spoke, it was hardly worth it.
Of course Johnson was right to say, given the Quds Force head’s role in the killing of thousands of civilians, ‘we will not lament his death’. He was right too to warn Tehran against escalation. But in stopping there and failing to explicitly endorse Washington’s right to neutralise Soleimani, the Prime Minister erred against our closest ally and its pursuit of its global security interests.
Dominic Raab made a better fist of it on The Andrew Marr Show, saying:
‘It was General Soleimani’s job description to engage proxies, militias across not just Iraq but the whole region, not just to destabilise those countries but to attack Western countries… In those circumstances the right of self-defence clearly applies.’
That a foreign secretary would be more robust than a prime minister in support of American use of force is unusual and not encouraging.
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