N. Peter Kramer’s Weekly Column
The current NATO conflict surrounding the Iran war is fundamentally different from previous ones. Not because Europe is deeply divided internally, that is not really remarkable. But a number of European NATO members prohibited the US from deploying aircraft for Operation Epic Fury from American bases on their territory or even flying over their territory. That blockade was received poorly of course in Washington. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sneered, ‘If the NATO alliance means that we cannot use our bases in Europe to serve US national interests, then NATO is one-way traffic’. He concludes that the US has to reconsider NATO membership after the Iran war.
That hit Europe hard. Rubio is a hawk but is also considered the voice of reason within the Trump administration. He smoothed things over regarding the Greenland dossier and adjusted a Trump-sanctioned peace plan for Ukraine when it paid too much attention to Russian interests. Moreover, as a US senator, Rubio has been one of the drafters of a law preventing a US president from leaving NATO without Congressional consent.
An American decision to partially withdraw tens of thousands of soldiers in Europe would not surprise no one. The European stance that Operation Epic Fury is ‘not our war’ gives the US a chance to mirror this attitude in the Ukraine dossier. If the US withdraws its support from Kyiv, Europe will be in serious trouble. In press conference regarding the Iran war, the US President said: ‘Putin is not afraid of NATO, Putin is afraid of us’.
NATO secretary general Mark Rutte travels to Washington today. He is facing his biggest challenge so far. Can he mend the relationship between the US and Europe? Rutte has previously been a guest on channels such as Fox News and CBS. He knows it is important to sell the NATO narrative to the American taxpayers, who knows that the alliance needs the US more than vice versa.
