‘NATO won’t follow Trump into his chaotic war with Iran’

It is entirely possible that Donald Trump, when attending the fee-paying ‘New York Military Academy’ in the 1960s, was away the day they studied the German strategist Carl von Clauswitz. Perhaps his bone spurs were playing up. Had the young Donald been paying attention, he might have read von Clauswitz, in On War:

‘No one starts a war, or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so, without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it’.

Based on the President’s late-night social media ejaculations, the unscheduled phone-calls with random journalists, and erratic press conferences, the world can be clear that there is no clarity.

It was about enabling the Iranians to rise up, then it wasn’t. It was about changing government, yet one Ayatollah has been killed only to be replaced by another, hell-bent on avenging his father, mother, wife, and son, each killed by a single US missile.

READ MORE: ‘While the right panics on Iran, Britain needs clean power, not chaos’

It was about diminishing Iran’s military strength, yet the Revolutionary Guard holds the world to ransom and wrecks the global economy. It was a war that was won, or one nearly won, or not yet won. Yet now the President needs help from the very nations whose armies he disparaged and peoples he insulted, or perhaps he doesn’t.  

As the US administration flounders, and Trump threatens an outcome ‘very bad for the future of NATO’ unless they join the pantomime, what is the correct response from NATO? So far, of the 32 states in Europe and North America which have signed the NATO Treaty, only one is an enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s war in Iran.

Canada, a country Trump threatened to invade, and has repeatedly belittled and insulted, has said no to offensive action. Denmark, another country whose territory Trump has threatened to invade, has said no. Mette Frederiksen in a televised debate about whether she could still call the United States Denmark’s most important ally, said ‘No, I can’t do that anymore’. A German government spokesman said the war with Iran had ‘nothing to do with NATO’, And the British Prime Minister, along with other NATO leaders, has refused to commit UK forces to offensive action.

It would be easy to see the NATO nations’ stance as purely the result of punitive tariffs, their lack of confidence in Trump’s leadership, the absence of a coherent military plan, and a reluctance to engage in years of asymmetric warfare with a battle-hardened nation, led by a fanatic with nothing to lose.

But NATO’s stance today is more the product of its own history and founding principles. A glance at the actual North Atlantic Treaty, signed by the Labour Government and eleven other founders on 4 April 1949, shows why. The first Article states that member parties:

‘settle any international disputes in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations’.

The US and Israel are in contradiction to Article 1.

Article 2 states that parties should:

‘eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them’.

Trump’s unhinged use of tariffs against America’s allies is plainly in contradiction to Article 2.

The famous Article 5 states that:

‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them…will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area’.

Here the wording is crucial. Iran is not in ‘Europe or North America’, and even if it was, it did not attack a NATO member state. This is why Article 5 has not been invoked, as it was after the 9/11 attacks on the USA. NATO is a defensive alliance, not the instrument of American foreign policy nor the projection of its President’s desires. 

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That is why Keir Starmer is right to follow a deliberative and steady course, in step with the Canadians, Germans, French, and the rest, and in line with the Treaty to which Britain adheres. NATO has lasted for the 76 years since Ernie Bevin wielded his pen, and has outlasted Prime Ministers, Presidents, Kings and Queens. Presidents come and go, but NATO endures.

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