Events over the past two weeks have been little short of apocalyptic as Israel bombed military facilities in Iran in a surprise attack and killed the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, after Iran had accused Israel of conducting genocide in Gaza. As a result of these allegations, Israel sought sanctions and military action against Iran to stop them from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In true Trump fashion, he joined the conflict, fighting alongside Israel as they began a series of strikes targeting the country's military bases, nuclear sites, security forces, and leadership. The President has said that he wants to implement change in regime in Iran and address the nuclear programme. Iran has targeted US military locations in the Middle East in response and has launched counter-strikes in Israel, and UK bases in Bahrain, Qatar and Cyprus Akritiri have also been amongst those attacked. Starmer has now set out to join the conversations as he allowed the US military to utilise UK foreign bases for their own attacks in hopes of keeping those connections close.

Trump has since argued that this conflict has been a long time coming, as he tells the UN Security Council that Iran has been in breach of several of their resolutions including limiting its own nuclear programme. Following the death of the Ayatollah, Trump addressed the Iranian people letting them know that this could be their greatest chance to take back their own country whilst also telling them that when they are “finished”, the US will “take over your government”.

As of recently, Iran has reported more than 1,300 civilian deaths due to the strikes, and nearly 10,000 sites have been hit. A new supreme leader has been appointed, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the previous Ayatollah with Hamas wishing him victory in the war. A number of appearances on social media have gone viral on both sides of the war, with the official White House TikTok account making comically edited videos of setting up missiles and launching them. They have not confirmed whether these videos are real-time recordings of strikes or strictly satire but either way the US have made it abundantly clear online and offline that they will not be taking any liberties against threats from overseas.

The Iranian government Twitter page has been incredibly active recently, in response to posts and videos from US accounts across many platforms, with updates and latest statements from the military spokesperson and reports on what is happening to their people.

Starmer has shown his stance on this war in a number of ways over the past week or so, and has recently accused both Farage and Badenoch of changing their own stances on their support for Trump as he claims the UK could ‘be at war’ right now if it was up to the Tory and Reform leaders.

Starmer immediately came under fire from fellow government officials and the public as people thought his inability to join the fight faster made the UK look weak, especially after the RAF base in Akritori was targeted. Badenoch had previously criticised his leadership saying that our Prime Minister should be doing more to ‘stop the people who are attacking us’, which she later denied at the most recent PMQ’s. After making the executive decision to not retaliate and send offensive strikes to destroy missile bases, Badenoch had further pressed him as to why he was allowing our allies - the US - to do what ‘we should be doing ourselves?’. He revealed that the UK armed forces had flown more than 230 hours of defensive operations over multiple Gulf countries, working day and night to protect British lives and had taken down multiple drones.

Whilst Starmer has proved his professionalism, level-headedness and ability to protect the people, their interests and their lives, Badenoch has proved quite the opposite as he accused her of insulting RAF personnel, when she asked why our Prime Minister has them ‘just hanging about’. Starmer seems to have taken many precautions to prevent this war from reaching UK soil, managing to utilise the RAF after the UK was brought into the war when the Akritori base was attacked.

The public’s opinion changes frequently, but many are in full support of Starmer’s decision to not involve the UK military in a fight that we did not start nor did we initially want any part in. Can we continue to trust Starmer to protect us? Many thought his previous inability to deliver on promises that got him the job as PM showed him to be a weak leader, but faced with a crisis and the threat of potentially World War III, he has stepped up to the plate. His diplomacy and quick-thinking during this process have determined how well he can handle leadership at a moment's notice.