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Newscast

How The Iraq War's Legacy Shaped The UK's Iran Response

Newscast

BBC

Politics, Daily News, News

4.36.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, we look at the extent to which the lessons learned from the Iraq war has shaped the UK's response to the war in Iran.

Keir Starmer has taken a position somewhere between full support of Donald Trump’s actions, and direct criticism of them.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president criticised the UK for being less than 100% supportive, saying ‘we will remember’ and "We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won!"

On Friday, former Labour Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair told a private event that the UK should have backed the strikes from the beginning.

But is Keir Starmer’s decision making being guided by some of the failures of the 2003 Iraq war, which Blair led the UK into?

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The presenters were Laura Kuenssberg and Paddy O’Connell. It was made by Chris Flynn with Chloe Scannapieco. The social producer was Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Phil Bull. The weekend series producer is Chris Flynn. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:06.4

Patrick.

0:08.2

Nutcracker is the word I would use.

0:09.7

I thought you were going to call me nutcracker, because I said your name.

0:12.4

You could say that Kirstam...

0:13.4

Kirstam has been nutcrackered by comments from Sir Tony Blair and President Trump.

0:22.4

Yes, he has, both of whom are figures not universally loved by people in his own party,

0:29.9

but their status is a former incredibly successful in many ways, Labour Prime Minister.

0:34.8

And the current occupant of the White House means that criticism from them is not something that Kirstarmer would choose to have.

0:41.8

And it has brought to life the political awkwardness of the raging, dangerous war in the Middle East

0:50.2

that it has just become over a week old.

0:52.6

Welcome to Sunday's newscast.

1:11.7

Newscast from the BBC. Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tattletail in the class. Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody. That daddy has to sometimes do strong language. Next time in Moscow. I feel delulu with no salulu. Take me down to Downey Street.

1:46.9

Let's go have a tour. Blimey. It's Patty in the studio. And it's Laura in the studio. And it's Henry at Home. And it's Henry at Home. Can I just say before we get into a very serious conversation, I think Henry at Home is now something that should be trademarked. Well, as I told you both, I was at a wedding last week and a big fan of the podcast who had not met before came up to me and said, you're Henry at home. And so, you know, I do have a surname too, by the way, in case anyone's wondering, it's Zephman and I appear on other bits of the BBC from BBC offices over the course of the week. But I'm very happy on Sundays to be Henry. You're Henry at home and I'm BBC Laura Kane. That's just things. Once you've got a name, that's just what you get. So there

1:50.0

you are. I think it could be a substack Henry at home, couldn't it? It could be a whole lifetime.

1:54.6

With interior design tips? Yeah, it could be anything. I wouldn't go quite that far. I'm not sure anyone would want my tips. When it takes off, we won't be getting any slice of it. We'll have retired by then.

2:04.7

So the conversation actually on the airwaves is all about what the US president says about the UK's

2:12.3

military support or not. And Donald Trump, in one of his latenight messages on social media, slagged off, let's just

2:21.8

say, slagged off what's meant to be his closest ally, the UK, and its prime minister. And he said

2:29.1

that the US doesn't need the UK. He said that this war in the Middle East is basically already been won by America and Israel. And so what if the UK is now thinking about sending two aircraft carriers, Donald Trump said. Actually, the reality is the UK's only got one aircraft carrier that's in any state to be

2:51.4

sent to the Gulf. But even by Donald Trump's measure, it is a pretty extraordinary digital

2:57.9

attack on your busy mate across the Atlantic. Henry at home? Well, I think there's two levels on which

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