U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the NATO alliance will have to be “re-examined” given the failure of European powers during the Iran conflict.
Speaking with the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Media Network, Secretary Rubio expressed deep disappointment with the response of allies in Europe to the conflict in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz and suggested that America may be better off without NATO.
“The president and our country will have to reexamine all of this after this operation is over. But one of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is that it gives us basing rights for contingencies. It allows us to station troops, aircraft, and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases. And that includes in much of Europe,” Rubio noted.
“And to see that in a time of need, the United States has identified a grave risk to our national security and our national interests. And we needed to conduct this operation. And we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our of their bases. And there are other countries that have done that as well. And so you ask yourself, well, what is in it for the United States?” the top diplomat questioned.
Secretary Rubio, who has long stood as one of the top hawks in the Republican Party in the United States, said that he has been a “big supporter of NATO,” given the “leverage, flexibility and operational capability” it provides the American military.
However, he said that if the alliance simply means the United States protecting Europe when they are attacked, and European powers refusing to come to America’s aid, then “that’s not a very good arrangement, that’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States… All of it’s going to have to be re-examined.”
The administration has not only expressed displeasure with socialist-run Spain, but also with traditionally more loyal allies such as the United Kingdom, which sensationally rebuked President Trump during the outset of the conflict by refusing access to a joint UK-U.S. base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to conduct strikes on Iran.
Adding insult to injury, Britain has also failed to provide minesweepers to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a competency that has been outsourced to the UK for decades by the United States, although it later opened its airbases which have become a major staging point for operations.
Scandalously, Prime Minister Starmer’s political calculations on supporting its ally the United States aside, the degraded state of the Royal Navy after decades of cost-cutting measures has left the country only questionably able to help. London’s previous fleet of Royal Navy minesweeping ships was retired before the next generation was ready to come online, leaving the Iranian regime free to hold the world energy supply hostage with the mere suggestion that it had deployed mines in the critical waterway.
On Tuesday, President Trump said that countries reliant on energy flowing through the Strait, such as the United Kingdom, should “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT”.
“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” he wrote.
President Trump also expressed his displeasure with France, which has also refused to help the United States reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with President Emmanuel Macron saying that his forces will only enter once the conflict has been resolved. Trump also lashed out at Paris on Tuesday for allegedly refusing to allow American supply to go over French territory towards Israel.
In an apparent reference to Macron congratulating then-Iranian Ebrahim Raisi in 2021, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the ‘Butcher of Iran,’ who has been successfully eliminated! The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!”