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newsMar 4, 202653:07pending

Is Europe being dragged into Trump’s Iran war?

Battle Lines

About this episode

In the wake of an attack on a British military base in Cyprus, the UK has said it will send an extra warship to the region. Does this make Britain militarily involved in America and Israel’s war against Iran? Or was that already true after Prime Minister Keir Starmer allowed Donald Trump to use British bases? Venetia and Roland discuss Europe’s growing involvement in the conflict and the countries that are resisting. 


Iranian-British journalist Nazenin Ansari talks about why she is pro-regime change but doesn’t want this war, the brutality of the IRGC, and how Khamenei’s son Mojtaba would be just more of the same if picked as his successor. 


Plus, senior foreign correspondent Sophia Yan sends a dispatch from the Turkish-Iranian border where she has been speaking to fleeing Iranians, and Dr Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, explains how the UN’s health body prepared for the conflict. 


Read Sophia Yan’s analysis of why China is unfazed by the war: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/04/why-china-is-unfazed-by-donald-trump-epic-fury/


Read Tom Cotterill on why this could be the Royal Navy’s biggest humiliation: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/03/is-this-the-royal-navys-biggest-humiliation/


Read our visual journalism deep dive on how Trump sank the Iranian navy: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/03/how-trump-sank-iranian-navy/


Producer: Peter Shevlin

Executive Producer: Louisa Wells


► Sign up to our most popular newsletter, From the Editor. Look forward to receiving free-thinking comment and the day's biggest stories, every morning. telegraph.co.uk/fromtheeditor


Contact us with feedback or ideas:

@venetiarainey

@RolandOliphant


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Is Europe being dragged into Trump’s Iran war?

Battle Lines

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