Trump’s Right That NATO Can Step Up Against Iran
But why would European leaders help a president who insults them and called the alliance “obsolete”?
To the rescue?
Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Having spent four years as supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I have a fairly clear-eyed view of the alliance’s vast capabilities, and also a realistic sense of what it is willing to do. When President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for “NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East process,” there was some understandable mockery. Nevertheless, it struck me as a sensible request — if an ironic one from a man who has repeatedly bashed the organization over recent years and called it obsolete.
Going ahead, there are two simple questions: What can NATO do operationally? And is it conceivable that the organization would greatly increase its presence in the most turbulent region in the world?