Alone Against Iran: Has Trump Learned Nothing About Allies?

Source: Author’s Facebook page

First, Trump spends a year telling his allies what a burden they are — calling them ungrateful, dismissing NATO as an “outdated organization,” and questioning the quality of European democracy. He accuses them of taking advantage of American security guarantees…”

Almost declares Germany an economic adversary against whom tariffs can be imposed and even threatens the withdrawal of American troops. With Canada, he is waging trade wars and making public insults at summits. With Japan and South Korea, he is negotiating in the style of a business center manager: either pay more for American troops, or we will review the entire security structure.

And here comes the big moment—when the same countries, as it turned out, should help Washington with the issue of shipping safety in the Strait of Hormuz.

And Washington is sincerely surprised: why aren’t the allies rushing to help?
Really, why?

After so many months of public “education” of partners, tariff wars, and lectures about how much they “owe America,” the reaction has been… restrained. Who would have thought!

Of course, Europe and Asia have a vested interest in freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. If the conflict in the Middle East drags on, it will not be in their own interests to stand aside. But there is a nuance.

International politics, it turns out, is not something that can be shoved into a banal bargaining session. We talk about it all the time, referring to Russia and its proposals to Trump to “solve” everything with Ukraine and move on to “trillion-dollar business.” And here it turned out that allies are not contractors to whom you can spend years explaining their secondary status and then call when you suddenly need help.

By the way, the first combat episodes have already shown the obvious: that without European bases, logistics, and US air corridors, projecting force into the Middle East would be much more difficult. That is, without the same allies who were convinced yesterday that they were costing America too much.

And it’s no wonder that James Mattis once said something that fits strangely poorly into business logic: “Nations with allies thrive. Nations without allies decline.”

This is precisely the kind of situation where it’s not just money that counts. Yet, for some reason, it seems unlikely that Trump will learn this lesson.

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