Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Utterly frustrated, even shocked, at European ‘allies’ rejecting his appeal to join the US-Israeli war against Iran, President Donald Trump has criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as “cowards” and a “paper tiger,” and said he was considering pulling out of the military alliance formed in April 1949 primarily against the then Soviet Union.
At 2100 hours on Wednesday, Eastern Time, (06.30 AM, Thursday, IST), the US President is scheduled to address the nation on the Iran war. Speculations are rift that he may announce America’s withdrawal from NATO.
Trump said the US withdrawal is ‘beyond reconsideration’ after the bloc members refused to participate in the ongoing Iran war, the media reported on Wednesday.
After starting the US-Israeli war on Iran war on February 28, he had called on the US allies to send naval escorts to help secure shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway facing disruption amid the conflict with Iran.
None of the NATO members accepted his plea—Spain even banned its airspace for US fighter aircraft flying towards Iran—enraging him to criticize the alliance, saying he is “strongly considering” pulling the US out of the alliance.
In an interview with the British daily The Telegraph, Trump termed the military bloc a “paper tiger.”
“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way,” he said, adding that the US’ removal from it was now “beyond reconsideration.”
The remark comes against the backdrop of NATO members’ unwillingness to participate in the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump had called on allies to send naval escorts to help secure shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway facing disruption amid the conflict with Iran. However, many allies, including the NATO members, were reluctant to do so.
“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe… I just think it should be automatic. We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us,” Trump told the newspaper.
He also criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for refusing to send naval ships to West Asia. “You don’t even have a navy. You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work,” he said.
Trump’s criticism comes shortly after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview with Fox Newscriticized NATO, calling it a “one-way street.”
“We’re going to have to re-examine the value of NATO and that alliance for our country…If NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked, but them denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement. That’s a hard one to stay engaged in,” Rubio added.
According to The Telegraphthe US’ calls for its allies to join the conflict in Iran raised questions about the applicability of NATO’s Article 5, which states that an “attack on one is an attack on all.” The report, however, noted that the clause applies only when a NATO member is attacked, a condition not met in the current conflict, which began on February 28 after airstrikes by the US and Israel against Iran.
According to the alliance’s website, the clause has only been invoked once before, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. More than 1,100 non-US troops were killed in the subsequent war in Afghanistan, the report added.
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