{"id":35523,"date":"2026-03-25T13:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/35523\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T13:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:33:11","slug":"trumps-absurdly-incoherent-iran-pleas-leave-allies-befuddled-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/35523\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s \u2018absurdly incoherent\u2019 Iran pleas leave allies befuddled \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the lack of concrete support, allies\u2019 joint statement appears to be pleasing Washington. \u201cIt\u2019s common sense for President Trump to call on our NATO allies to step up and do more to help secure the Strait [of] Hormuz,\u201d White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Sunday<\/a>. \u201cNow we\u2019re already starting to see them answer the President\u2019s call.\u201d<\/p>\n

In practice, Europe could deploy destroyers to help Washington escort convoys through the strait, said Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow and naval military expert at the Royal United Services Institute, since the U.S. only has around 25 of the heavily-armed, missile-capable type of vessel available to immediately deploy worldwide.<\/p>\n

Europe could also supply counter-mining capabilities, he argued, one area where the U.S. is\u00a0 \u201cquite constrained.\u201d Germany, Estonia, France, Romania, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and the U.K. together operate roughly 40 counter-mine vessels, he said, compared to America\u2019s four.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a role for a wide array of navies to play in this,\u201d said one British defense official, adding the U.K. had begun examining possible options such as sending a Royal Navy ship or commercial vessel accompanied by autonomous systems to destroy mines as part of a multinational coalition in the strait \u2014 but only once the conflict subsides.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is clear,\u201d they added, \u201cis that there has to be some, if not a complete end \u2026 in the rate and scale in combat operations in the region before we could imagine to secure the strait.\u201d<\/p>\n

And until the U.S. ceases hostilities in the region and explains what it needs \u2014 and why \u2014 its European partners are unlikely to do much more.<\/p>\n

Allies \u201cdo not agree with being called into a war that we haven\u2019t started, with no idea [of what the U.S.] is going to do,\u201d said one NATO diplomat. For now, \u201cI\u2019m proud of our \u2018no.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting from Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the lack of concrete support, allies\u2019 joint statement appears to be pleasing Washington. \u201cIt\u2019s common sense for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1216,11163,2238,648,38,9039,3078,382,537,34,2245,49,1486,2247,2042,150,2044,15356,445,56,691,51,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-35523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-boris-pistorius","10":"tag-bulgaria","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-estonia","14":"tag-eu-us-military-ties","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-iran","18":"tag-mark-rutte","19":"tag-middle-east","20":"tag-nato","21":"tag-romania","22":"tag-services","23":"tag-shipping","24":"tag-supply-chains","25":"tag-the-netherlands","26":"tag-trade","27":"tag-ukraine","28":"tag-united-kingdom","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-war-in-iran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116290073712833742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35523","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=35523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}