With the launch of two ballistic missiles at the United States and United Kingdom military base in Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, Iran demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that it is an imminent threat to the U.S. and its allies. The missiles showed that a terrorist-sponsored, fanatical West-hating regime has the ability to hit targets as far away as Europe.
But the Islamic missile launch has done something else. It has underlined how essential the Chagos Islands, which include Diego Garcia, are to American security and to the West generally. Accordingly, the possibility that the government of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer might give the archipelago away is alarming and must be stopped.
Diego Garcia is the largest of the islands and is where a joint U.S. and U.K. military base is, and it is vital to Washington’s ability to project power in an increasingly dangerous part of the world. For this reason, it must remain accessible to the U.S. and must not fall into the hands of our enemies or their allies.
Iran recognizes Diego Garcia’s importance. So too does the Trump administration. But Starmer either cannot or, more likely, will not. It is giving the islands away in a fit of post-colonial guilt in spite of the wishes of the ethnic African inhabitants, to the government of the ethnic Indian nation Mauritius, which is a puppet client of Communist China.
In late February, Starmer’s government announced that it would hand over the archipelago and lease back the military base. That decision is paused, and for good reason. To paraphrase the famed French diplomat Talleyrand, the Starmer government’s decision is “worse than a crime, it is a mistake,” and the depths of that error are only now beginning to be felt.
Starmer initially refused to allow the U.S. to use Diego Garcia to launch attacks on Iran. This infuriated President Donald Trump, as the president made plain in his White House press conference on Thursday. The island being “strategically located” and controlled by America’s recalcitrant U.K. ally is a serious problem. The U.S. and the U.K. established the joint base in 1961, and, as part of that agreement, the U.K. would retain sovereignty.
The entire concept of the base was “conceived and initiated by the U.S., not the U.K., to assert American control in the Indian Ocean,” according to the British think tank Chatham House. Washington shelled out millions of dollars to build the base and have access to it. U.S. naval planners wanted to ensure American access to overseas bases during the Cold War. The U.S. was willing to pay for it. All Britain had to do was have the gumption to keep its territory. The proposed Chinese takeaway does not accomplish that.
Mauritius has a long-standing and close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, which the Pentagon considers to be the U.S.’s sole rival for global supremacy. Mauritius supports the CCP on most geopolitical issues and gets Chinese diplomatic and economic support in return. China has a growing presence in the Chagos Islands, giving Beijing a position in the Indian Ocean in precisely the place that the U.S. has had one for the past 65 years.
In short, Mauritius is little more than a vassal state of China. For the U.K. to hand over a strategic base, conceived of and built by a close ally and treaty signatory, to the West’s foremost foe is unacceptable. The Starmer government has no reason to do so, aside from its reflexive “wokeism,” as Trump termed it.
Chagossians are angry about being left out of the negotiations, being essentially denied the right to self-determination upon which post-colonial guilt is founded. The fate of Hong Kong, another former British colony now suppressed by Beijing, underscores the Chagossians’ concerns.
Diego Garcia has been a key staging ground for the international order that the U.S. leads. In recent months, the base has been central to countering Iran and seizing Russia’s “shadow fleet” vessels carrying sanctioned oil. These are not functions that China or its lackeys would perform.
It is in the interest of both America and its longtime allies, including the U.K., that the U.S., and not China, maintains this geopolitically key foothold. The U.S. has the right and should have the will to prevent this atrocious deal from going ahead. The Starmer government would make a serious mistake if it chose to proceed. The terms are unacceptable and the damage to relations with its key ally would be deep and long-lasting.
