Bases, Bloodshed, and Betrayal

News:

Britain blocking use of air bases Trump says would be needed for strikes on Iran, UK media reports. (CNN)

Comment:

Britain’s reported refusal to grant the United States access to its military bases for a potential strike on Iran has been framed in Western media as a principled stand grounded in international law and restraint. However, such a portrayal is both misleading and historically dishonest. Britain is not a neutral actor suddenly discovering legal or moral concerns; it is the very power that played a central role in dismantling the Ottoman Caliphate, carving up Muslim lands, surrendering Palestine to the Zionist occupiers, and engineering the political fragmentation of the Ummah. Its invocation of legality today serves not Muslim interests, but British imperial calculation.

Britain’s hesitation to openly facilitate U.S. military action does not signal opposition to war or concern for Muslim lives. Rather, it reflects a tactical recalibration aimed at preserving its global influence while minimizing political and legal exposure. British forces remain entrenched across the Muslim world through permanent bases, arms sales, intelligence sharing, and security agreements. By selectively distancing itself from a direct strike while remaining embedded in the broader Western military chokehold upon the Muslim world, London seeks to manage imperial power discreetly, not abandon it. The violence imposed on Muslim lands continues unabated.

Assertions that Britain is “withholding support” obscure its long-standing alignment with Western strategies that suppress Islamic sovereignty. Britain continues its efforts to counter the rise of Islam, both through military and intelligence operations that weaken Muslim lands and entrench Western dominance. Its coordination with Washington and NATO ensures that even when it refrains from overt military participation, it remains complicit in the broader project of coercion. This selective posture allows Britain to appear restrained while sustaining the very systems that enable aggression against the Muslim world.

At the same time, this episode exposes the willingness of regional puppet-regimes to act as executors of U.S. interests. Regimes in Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and the Gulf have consistently opened their airspace, bases, and logistical infrastructure to American and British forces, facilitating wars and coercive policies across the region. These regimes, propped up by Western support, prioritize regime survival and strategic alliances over the interests of their own populations. Their readiness to serve foreign powers contrasts sharply with Britain’s reluctance and highlights a deeper crisis of political dependency in the Muslim world.

In conclusion, this dispute is not about whether Britain permits the United States to use its bases, but about a global order in which Muslim lands remain subject to foreign domination whether through Western powers directly or through Ruwaybidha (lowly rulers). Neither London’s deceptive restraint nor regional regimes’ open collaboration offers protection or dignity to the Ummah. True security can only come through the restoration of an independent Islamic political authority that rejects imperial manipulation altogether and ends the subjugation of Muslim lands to foreign interests. Only via a Khilafah (Caliphate) will the Muslim lands be free of both U.S. and British military bases used to strike us from within our very homes. And remember Allah’s warning wherein He says,

[يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ تَتَّخِذُواْ بِطَانَةً مِّن دُونِكُمْ لاَ يَأْلُونَكُمْ خَبَالاً وَدُّواْ مَا عَنِتُّمْ قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاء مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ قَدْ بَيَّنَّا لَكُمُ الآيَاتِ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ]

“O believers! Do not associate closely with others who would not miss a chance to harm you. Their only desire is to see you suffer. Their prejudice has become evident from what they say - and what their hearts hide is far worse. We have made Our revelations clear to you, if only you understood” [Āal-i ʿImrān 3:118].

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Haitham Ibn Thbait
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in America