By Matilda Coleman, upnewsinfo.com
Five days after the United States killed a top Iranian military commander, a move that pushed Washington and Tehran to the brink of war, US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would ask NATO “to involve much more in the Middle East process. “
Trump, who ordered the January 3 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, which caused reprisals of Iranian attacks against US targets in Iraq, then asked the 29-member alliance to send more troops to the Middle East and increase its role in the ” conflict prevention “in the region. The lawsuit surprised many, given Trump’s long criticism of NATO, including questions about its value to the US. UU. And call the allies to pay more for the defense of the alliance.
Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, initially seemed to pay attention to Trump’s request and said the Atlantic alliance could do more in the Middle East. But since then he has pointed out that NATO would not deploy combat troops in the region, saying that “the best way is to allow local forces to fight terrorism on their own.”
The alliance currently has 400 employees in Iraq, as part of a mission to train the country’s army to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State from Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). But shortly after the murder of Soleimani, NATO temporarily suspended mission training activities without combat.
And despite Trump’s call to NATO to expand his presence in the Middle East, analysts say the deep divisions between the US. UU. And some NATO allies on Washington’s strategy on Iran, since the unilateral US decision. UU. In 2018 of abandoning a historic agreement that halted Tehran’s nuclear program to the murder of Soleimani probably limits the role of the alliance in the region.
“No NATO ally supported the US decision to eliminate Soleimani. Turkey may have said so openly, but all allies think it was a strategically disastrous decision. It is also why NATO will not expand its participation in the region in greatly, “said Ivo Daalder, who served as Washington’s ambassador to NATO between 2009 and 2013.
Neither NATO nor the United Kingdom, the closest ally of Washington, was reportedly informed of the US operation to kill the Quds Force commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Following the death of Soleimani, the United Kingdom, France and Germany called for “de-escalation,” while Turkey expressed its opposition to “foreign interventions, assassinations and sectarian conflicts in the region.”
“The current crisis has deepened divisions across the Atlantic and has increased the likelihood of European allies distancing themselves from an increasingly unpredictable United States,” said Daalder, who is now the president of the Chicago Council.
Trump’s demand that NATO increase its presence in the Middle East is something that would mark a significant change in the mission of the alliance, founded in 1949 as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.
Daalder said the lawsuit was based on Trump’s belief that Europe’s interests were more tied to the region than those of the United States, including a greater European dependence on Middle Eastern oil and exposure to threats posed by combatants. of ISIL returning. In fact, Trump, in calling for greater NATO participation, said the United States was independent and “does not need,quot; oil from the Middle East.
Rasa Jukneviciene, a Lithuanian legislator and former head of the European Parliament delegation to NATO, characterized those comments as a veiled message to NATO’s European allies about their future role in the field of security.
“It is a message addressed first to Europeans, and Europe must realize that talking about strategic autonomy will no longer be enough,” Jukneviciene said, asking European countries to increase their defense spending.
Currently, USA UU. It contributes approximately 70 percent of the NATO budget, and about 3.4 percent of the country’s GDP goes to alliance costs in 2019. Therefore, the US UU. It largely leads the NATO security agenda. Speaking at a NATO summit in the United Kingdom last month, Trump once again urged members to commit to increasing their defense spending to 4 percent of GDP, while targets have been set at 2 percent for 2024
“Europe will have to make a decision, one or the other. In my opinion, and in the opinion of most politicians in my country, NATO is the best tool to deal with such complex problems,” Jukneviciene said.
Jamie Shea, principal member of the Brussels Friends of Europe expert group, said NATO member states should see Trump’s demands to contribute more resources to Middle East operations as an opening “to make NATO more relevant to the Mediterranean and Turkey, and even to Trump. ”
In return, Europe could ask for “Trump’s guarantees that there will be no more threats to abandon NATO or ambiguity over Article 5,” he said, referring to the provision in the alliance letter that forces allies to defend themselves if They are subjected. attack.
“Every crisis is an opportunity,” he added.
Amid the discord and questions about the value of the alliance, some experts say that NATO’s next steps in the Middle East could be crucial for its future.
Fawaz A Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said he expected the alliance to enter a “transition period,quot; while members decide where future resources will be placed.
“The American century is coming to an end,” he said, referring to the decline of Washington’s influence on NATO partners. “There has been a break in global relations between historical allies, and NATO is at the center.”
