With Diego Garcia Military Base in the Balance, ‘The Chagos Farce’ is No Laughing Matter – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the British Isles, is desperate to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, yet another nation surrounded by water. Never mind that Mauritius never owned the Chagos, has no claim on them, and shares little with them beyond the Indian Ocean in which they both soak.

Americans should be deeply concerned about this title dispute among this trio of island states.

While Chagos might ring a few bells in the USA, Diego Garcia should.

“It is no exaggeration to say that Diego Garcia — the largest of the Chagos Islands — hosts the most strategically important U.S. air and logistics base in the Indian Ocean and is vital to the defence of the U.K. and our allies,” Lord West of Spithead wrote in a study for Policy Exchange, a London-based think tank. The retired Royal Navy admiral added that “ceding the Chagos Islands to Mauritius would be an irresponsible act, which would put our strategic interests — and the interests of our closest allies — in danger…”

How much harm could Mauritius do to the United States and the United Kingdom?

By itself, not much. Unfortunately, Mauritius has friends in low places.

“There can be little doubt that the Chinese are pushing Mauritius to claim Diego Garcia and that China wants access to and control of the port and airfield facilities,” Lord Spithead warned. “The depth of the Sino-Mauritius relationship is evident in the 47 official Chinese development finance projects on the island.”

Unlike the soft-skulled Starmer, hard-headed Britons fret that the Chinese Communist Party’s military and espionage ships would be welcome in Mauritian waters. If they were there to survey shrimp or whales, most would wish them well. However, the CCP’s vessels would focus intensely on Diego Garcia.

This small, mysterious island is 2,362 miles due west of Jakarta, Indonesia — in central Nowhere. As far as Reno is from Manhattan, Diego Garcia has been a joint Anglo-American military and intelligence outpost since 1973. Diego Garcia serves the Special Relationship, and the U.S. and U.K.’s Western allies, as a giant, stationary aircraft carrier, staging ground, and watch tower. It is a springboard for high-risk and clandestine operations. (RELATED: Trump, Theodore Roosevelt, and US Naval Power)

Like a Hollywood actor with a sexy name, Diego Garcia has played a crucial, supporting role in such dramas as America’s early, post-9/11 air strikes against Afghanistan and U.S. efforts to temper CCP belligerence during summer 2017’s Bhutan-China-India border standoff. The U.S. Air Force’s B-2 and B-52 bombers are cooling their jets on Diego Garcia right now. Their mission: Teach Iran some manners — from a long distance, if possible, or up close, if necessary.

If America ever came to blows with China, such military action likely would be conducted or supplied from Diego Garcia. It already is a giant listening post from which America, our British brethren, and the West eavesdrop on Chinese electronic transmissions, ship movements, and other national-security matters.

Under an agreement negotiated by Starmer’s Labour government, Great Britain will surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and then lease them back for £90 million per year for 99 years. These £8.9 billion ($11.9 billion) in payments would be adjusted for inflation and front-loaded, with a 40-year extension option.

Notwithstanding the folly of paying for something it already possesses, the British government trusts that if Mauritius controls the Chagos Islands, it will remain open to British and American armed forces. This is the difference between owning and renting.

Starmer should have studied a cautionary tale that America should remember:

The U.S. enjoyed “permanent” military installations at Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, both in the Philippines. After a volcanic eruption damaged these properties, the Filipino Senate rejected a lease extension and told Uncle Sam in September 1991: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” Idiotically and unnecessarily, Starmer is steering London and Washington into the same dark alley.

This fandango sprang from the mind of far-Left Lord Hermer, the British attorney general. Before entering government, Hermer was a highly outspoken detractor of President Donald J. Trump. Hermer called Trump 45 “an orange tyrant,” “a coward,” and an “autocratic populist” who sows “chaos and hatred.”

After the 2020 election, Hermer said on the Matrix Chambers podcast, “…it is a huge relief to start this podcast by saying out loud, Biden won.

“And you know what? It’s even more pleasure [sic] to say out loud [that] Trump lost.”

Hermer previously practiced criminal law. Every suspect is entitled to an attorney. But, boy, does Hermer know how to pick his clients. His defendants seem to be moonlighting from Interpol’s 10-Most-Wanted list. The Spectator of London cited these beauties:

• Gerry Adams: Former president of Sinn Féin, the political arm of the terrorist Irish Republican Army
• Rangzieb Ahmed: A convicted terrorist who collaborated with al-Qaeda
• Maha Elgizouli: The mother of a British ISIS member
• Liberty: A deceptively named group that fought in vain to restore the British citizenship of Shamima Begum, a 15-year-old girl who moved to Syria to join the Islamic State

Given the abundance of terrorists whom he has defended, it becomes difficult to assume that Hermer had Anglo-American security on his mind when he envisioned the future of Diego Garcia and its adjacent islands.

Lord Roberts of Belgravia calls this whole affair “the Chagos Farce.” He marvels at the fact that the U.K. unceremoniously expelled the Chagossians between 1968 and 1973, as the Diego Garcia base was established. Thus, beyond this martial presence, these islands are unpopulated.

“Mauritius won’t control the islands,” Roberts tells me in tragicomic astonishment. “They’re not going to administer them because there is no one there to administer!”

Among the most accomplished historians on either side of the Atlantic, Andrew Roberts has studied more than his fair share of unforced political errors. But he sees The Chagos Farce in a league of its own.

“In the long panoply of wounds that British Governments habitually inflict upon themselves, paying a vast fortune over the coming century to give away islands that have already been paid for and are strategically vital, all because a bunch of human rights lawyers from countries such as Russia and China, which have no human rights, say that we should in a non-binding judgment, is right up there with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown selling off Britain’s gold reserves at $276 per ounce.”

So, what benefit does the Chagos Farce offer Great Britain? Says Roberts: “The warm feeling among Labour of decolonizing a territory without people.”

Warm feelings are lovely, but not at the cost of imperiled U.S. national interests and enfeebled Western security.

While Labourites might congratulate each other for making the sun set on the British Empire just a bit sooner each day, they deserve scorn for systemically excluding the Chagossians from talks over their ancestral home. In an ironic echo of the American Revolution, Labour is subjecting the Chagossians to decolonization without representation. For all his sterling Leftist credentials, Starmer’s attitude towards these people of color is: Better seen than heard.

To the surprise and frustration of right-thinking Britons with whom I lately have spoken, President Donald J. Trump appears to have blessed The Chagos Farce. The blandly reassuring Starmer must have applied the charm with a spatula when he visited Trump at the White House in February.

“I have a feeling it is going to work out very well,” Trump told Starmer about the unfolding agreement. “I think we will be inclined to go along with your country.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly lobbied Trump on behalf of this arrangement.

“We are now working with the Mauritian government to finalise the deal and sign the treaty,” Starmer’s spokesman told The Times of London. “It’s now between us and the Mauritian government to finalise the deal following the discussions with the U.S.”

A Trump-45 advisor offers this insight, “President Trump has wisely directed public attention to the longstanding strategic U.S. interests in places like Greenland and Panama,” says Alexander B. Gray, senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and former Chief of Staff of the National Security Council (2019-21). He adds, “The Chagos Archipelago falls into the same category, with U.S. military access to Diego Garcia essential to projecting American power globally and containing China’s growing ambitions in the Indian Ocean. While the British Labour Government may be determined to finish the UK’s decline as a significant power on the world stage, the Trump Administration has every reason to convince London to chart a different course.”

One British security expert states similar sentiments with none of his nation’s characteristic understatement: “The Chagos giveaway is mad, frustrating, and simply a betrayal. This is awful and must be stopped!”

President Trump is just the man to halt The Chagos Farce. He should ring Prime Minister Starmer and tell him that America and the West need Diego Garcia and have no reason to deliver it and the other Chagos Islands to a distant, unconnected, pro-Chinese government, well outside the Anglo-American sphere of influence.

Trump has every right to tell Starmer that, on further reflection, a treaty governing the future of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands should not be solely up to him. Instead, it should require the advice and consent of the United States Senate.

After extensive public discussion, incisive hearings, and a vigorous floor debate, the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body will do the right thing.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.

READ MORE from Deroy Murdock:

Down With GOP Tax-Hike Talk!

Is Georgetown on the Verge of a Financial Breakdown?

This Aspect of the Atlantic’s “Scoop” Is All Wet