Even as they voiced misgivings about the US-Israeli war on Iran, some European nations found themselves deploying their armed forces to West Asia to defend their citizens and interests.
Britain and France, neither of which is part of the assault on Iran that began on Saturday, announced they would use their navies and air forces to help blunt Iran’s retaliatory strikes.
The Netherlands was on Wednesday weighing a request from President Emmanuel Macron of France to use its military to help secure international shipping routes.
Macron said on Tuesday that, although France considers the offensive by the US and Israel to be “outside the bounds of international law”, he would send air defence assets and a warship to defend the island of Cyprus from the widening retaliatory strikes from Iran and its allies.
Macron said he wanted to build an international coalition in the region that would secure commercial shipping routes that are “essential to the global economy”. He said France would contribute its aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.
French Rafale fighter jets were operating over the United Arab Emirates to “ensure the security of our assets”, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, announced following a drone attack that hit a French naval base in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
He said on Wednesday that the planes had “neutralised drones targeting the UAE airspace, and therefore potentially the French military base located there”.
Britain this week said it would deploy a warship to the Mediterranean Sea, as well as helicopters with counter-drone capabilities, after an attack on one of its military bases in Cyprus.
US President Donald Trump has publicly criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s refusal to support the initial strikes on Iran, and accused him of damaging the relationship between Britain and the US.
Addressing Britain’s parliament on Wednesday, Starmer defended his position and said that Britain was deploying fighter jets, ships and counter-drone systems in a defensive capacity across West Asia and in Cyprus, and that he had reached an agreement to allow the US to use British bases “to strike Iranian missiles and launchers”.
New York Times News Service
