Where Are America’s ‘Allies’?

“We do not need the help of anyone,” President Trump asserts in capital letters on Truth Social Tuesday. The statement follows the president’s call on “our NATO ‘Allies’” and Asians, and even Communist China, for assistance in opening the Strait of Hormuz. A chorus of the president’s critics remind him he had panned the Europeans so long that he shouldn’t have expected their help. Yet what if his critique is actually right on the money?“They don’t want to help us, which is amazing,” an irate Mr. Trump said Tuesday at a White House St. Patrick’s Day reception for the Irish prime minister, Micheál Martin. It makes one wonder where the Europeans will be if Russia or China make a move for Greenland. Is it wrong to predict that the Danish army’s 21,000 active troops — fewer than the NYPD’s 33,000 officers — would fail to defend the world’s largest, mineral-rich island?This month the answer is becoming clear. Europe and Asia are much more dependent than America on oil and gas that sails through the Strait of Hormuz. Yet as the Islamic Republic wields a veto power over who can use the strait, Europeans issue endless statements, and nothing else. “France will never take part in operations to open or liberate the Strait of Hormuz in the current context,” President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday.Never? Rather than directing anger at the power that threatens to choke their energy source, not to mention amassing a missile arsenal and future nuclear weapons that can hit the continent, European leaders duke it out with Mr. Trump. “We didn’t choose this war,” Mr. Macron says. Will members of the North Atlantic Treaty get on board? With no approval from the United Nations “this war is not a matter for NATO,” says Chancellor Friedrich Merz. It was less than two weeks ago that Herr Merz declared that Germany was on the side of America and Israel. He told a heckler who was agitating for the Palestinian Arabs that “the federal government that I lead will never leave any doubt about where we stand. We stand with Israel.” No sooner, though, does the war in Iran, which has been underway for years, erupt into the open than Herr Merz heads for the hills.“I’ve long said that I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us, so this was a great test,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday. While he praised the Gulf countries’ cooperation, these fair weather allies are also relying solely on America and Israel to eliminate the threat from a neighbor that bombards their territory. Why doesn’t Saudi Arabia use the advanced F-35 fighter jets that it bought with so much fanfare? Is it hedging bets, awaiting the war’s outcome?Criticism of America’s post-war planning is prevalent. “What is astonishing is that the U.S. doesn’t see the dangers of the aftermath,” Britain’s former MI-6 chief, John Sawers, says. “The countries of the region and Europe and the rest of us will be clearing up the mess of this for the next 10 to 15 years.” If so, wouldn’t they be best positioned to do away with the “mess” if they shouldered some of the war responsibilities?Also, do Europeans think they can defend themselves without America? “Keep on dreaming. You can’t,” NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said recently. Continent leaders seem to recognize the Islamic Republic’s threat. Yet they’re too flustered by Mr. Trump to help end the menace. Instead, they act as if America is their enemy, rather than the mullahs. No wonder Mr. Trump’s Truth Social post put scare quotes around the word “allies.”

Where Are America’s ‘Allies’?

Where Are America’s ‘Allies’?

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