President Donald Trump did not ask much from our European allies before launching Operation Epic Fury. He didn\u2019t ask them to join US pilots in combat in the skies over Iran or to contribute money and material to support military operations. All he asked was for Europe to hold America\u2019s coat as it defeats an enemy that threatens us all \u2014\u00a0by allowing US forces to use the European bases where America has troops stationed to defend Europe and to fly over European airspace as Americans risk their lives to disarm the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n
Apparently, even that was too much for some allies. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that Britain does not believe in \u201cregime change from the skies\u201d and refused to let the United States use its own aircraft at RAF Fairford and the naval base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean \u2014\u00a0backtracking only after Trump publicly excoriated him. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez barred the US from using its bases at Rota and Mor\u00f3n de la Frontera and forced Trump to withdraw US refueling tankers stationed there. Though Germany has not stopped the US from using its base at Ramstein, it has made clear it will not help the US in other ways. \u201cThe war in the Middle East is not a matter for NATO,\u201d German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared, \u201ctherefore Germany will also not become militarily involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump never asked for Berlin\u2019s help in the military campaign to disarm and decapitate the Iranian regime. But now he\u2019s asking for help in a discrete mission: preventing Iran from cutting off the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world\u2019s most critical energy choke points.<\/p>\n
Some NATO allies have stepped up. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna declared this week, \u201cWe are a small nation but we also maybe have some specific capabilities that [we] will be ready to offer if there is a need for any kind of support to [the] US\u201d Finland, which only joined NATO in 2023 and has limited naval capabilities, has similarly offered to help \u2014\u00a0and President Alexander Stubb has urged other allies to do the same. Ironically, Ukraine \u2014\u00a0which is not a NATO member \u2014\u00a0is proving to be a more reliable partner than many of America\u2019s treaty allies, sending more than 200 military advisers to assist Middle Eastern countries in defending against Iranian Shahed drone strikes and offering the same assistance to the US.<\/p>\n
As usual, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is trying to save the Atlantic Alliance from itself. \u201cI have been in contact with many allies. We all agree, of course, that the strait has to open up again,\u201d he declared this week. \u201cThey are working on that collectively, to find a way forward.\u201d On Thursday, at Rutte\u2019s urging, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and Canada released a joint statement condemning \u201cde facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces\u201d and expressing \u201cour readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait. We welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning.\u201d We will see if those words turn into concrete action.<\/p>\n
Rutte understands that the fate of the NATO alliance lies in the Strait of Hormuz. He also understands that Trump has done more to strengthen NATO than any previous president. When he took office in 2017, only five European allies were meeting their commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense. Now, all except Spain are doing so \u2014\u00a0and have committed to raise that to 5%. But all that spending is meaningless if allies cannot be depended on to use those resources in a time of need.<\/p>\n
Trump is expecting support not just from NATO. America\u2019s Pacific allies are even more dependent on Persian Gulf energy than Europe is. Japan gets about 90 percent of its crude oil imports from the Middle East, while South Korea gets about 70%\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0most of which passes through the strait. Our allies need oil from the Persian Gulf more than America does, and they should be cooperating with the US to reopen the strait as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
With or without allied help, the United States will eventually restore the flow of oil and gas in the Persian Gulf. For Trump, the request for assistance is less a matter of ensuring the success of the mission than a test of the viability of US alliances. \u201cI\u2019ve long said that we\u2019ll be there for them but they won\u2019t be there for us,\u201d he said this week.<\/p>\n
In the Strait of Hormuz, the smart allies have a chance to prove him wrong.<\/p>\n
Marc Thiessen writes a column for The Washington Post on foreign and domestic policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump did not ask much from our European allies before launching Operation Epic Fury. He didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[12814,15894,989,159,4659,4307,4660,394,102,1743,13080,2245,179,1486,39,81,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-35428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-2026-iran-war","9":"tag-allies-of-world-war-i","10":"tag-diplomacy","11":"tag-foreign-policy","12":"tag-foreign-relations","13":"tag-foreign-relations-of-the-united-states","14":"tag-global-politics","15":"tag-government","16":"tag-hormuz","17":"tag-international-relations","18":"tag-international-security","19":"tag-mark-rutte","20":"tag-military","21":"tag-nato","22":"tag-persian-gulf","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-strait-of-hormuz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116289739400090478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}