The U.S. war in Iran may be over, or at least in abeyance, but President Donald Trump isn’t done blaming Europeans for his failure there. A week after threatening to quit NATO over European states’ reluctance to help out, especially in clearing the Strait of Hormuz, and just two days after striking a shaky ceasefire deal, the president was at it again Thursday, berating the strategically obsequious Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general, for the allies’ inaction.
After the meeting Trump took to Truth Social, lamenting, in all caps, that “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN.” Rutte, for his part, dutifully went about trying to get NATO to pledge some sort of support for a Strait of Hormuz mission. The trouble is that Iran is still effectively blocking the Strait, and few if any European states seem eager to clear it by force, whereas they might agree to patrol it uselessly when the danger has passed. So the ceasefire, even if it lasts, probably won’t protect NATO from Trump’s wrath.
The White House is reportedly considering moving U.S. troops out of the most recalcitrant European nations into more cooperative ones. And Trump continues threatening to simply announce a U.S. exit from the alliance. That prospect caused a cascade of concern last week, with Washington’s transatlanticists insisting that exiting NATO would be catastrophic for American security. Senate leaders hastened to reassure allies that Trump cannot unilaterally pull out. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chris Coons (D-DE), leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared that NATO underpins U.S. security and that “the United States will remain in” it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reminded everyone that Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, sponsored the 2023 law requiring two-thirds of the Senate to sign off before the United States can withdraw from NATO.
Read at The American Conservative
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