Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“NATO is a defensive alliance,” said one UK military analyst as the president demanded help in his unprovoked war on Iran. “It’s not been clear what the legal justification for the war is.”

President Donald Trump on Tuesday lashed out at European countries over the message leaders have been clear about since the US joined Israel in waging an unprovoked war against Iran—an assault that swiftly led Iran to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, sending global oil prices skyrocketing.

The war, Europe has said, is not one the United States’ longtime allies have started or that they’ll be “dragged into,” and the worldwide economic consequences are the responsibility of the countries that chose to attack Iran.

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Reports that France over the weekend barred US military planes headed for Israel from flying over its territory appeared to particularly send Trump into a rage, prompting him to call the French government “VERY UNHELPFUL” on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!” said the president Tuesday morning.

He then took aim at countries across Europe, writing, “Go get your own oil!” in a separate missive.

Trump repeated previous suggestions that US allies are “cowards” for not offering their assistance in the unprovoked war, demanding that they “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE” the oil by force.

“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,” he added.

France denied the reports that it had prevented US planes from flying over its airspace, but it is one of a number of longtime US allies that have reportedly taken action to avoid complicity in the US-Israeli war, which experts say is a clear violation of international law, including the United Nations Charter, and which has killed nearly 2,000 Iranians and over 1,000 people across the Middle East as the conflict has widened.

Italian officials have denied the US military the use of an airbase in Sicily, saying the Trump administration had not gone through the required authorization procedure. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been most vocal about refusing to help the US war effort, saying Trump had embarked on an “illegal war” as his administration announced the US military would be barred from Spanish airspace after an earlier statement that the US could not use Spain’s military bases for operations involving the Iran war.

One senior European government official told Politico last week that Trump’s demands for help have been “absurdly incoherent to put it mildly,” considering the White House has also demanded that countries in Europe step up their efforts to defend Ukraine without relying on the US.

“The big picture is: The US has asked us to take care of and defend our own countries, take care of supporting Ukraine… and now [the] Middle East and global supply chains,” the official said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday reiterated Trump’s message, saying that “there are countries around the world who ought to be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well.”

“It’s not just the United States Navy,” said Hegseth, who has attempted to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War. “Last time I checked, there was supposed to be a big, bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well.”

On Sky News in the UK on Tuesday, military analyst Sean Bell issued a reminder after Hegseth’s and Trump’s comments that “it’s not a [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] war.”

“NATO is a defensive alliance,” said Bell. “It’s not been clear what the legal justification for the war is.”

Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the worldwide oil supply flows, has sent oil prices soaring in the US and around the world. In the US, gas prices hit an average of $4 per gallon on Tuesday, and Europe has seen prices go up by about 70% since the war began.

European leaders on Tuesday were meeting to discuss the growing energy crisis, with the European Commission urging governments to consider a public call for people to reduce their use of energy, particularly in the transport sector.

As the global community faces the economic consequences of the war, Trump’s comments on Tuesday bolstered the previous day’s reporting by The Wall Street Journal that the president is “willing to end the US military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.”

At Drop Site News, journalist Murtaza Hussain joined co-founder Ryan Grim for a discussion on Tuesday about Trump’s latest comments.

While noting that Trump has “engaged in deception” and could actually “be gearing up to launch some operation intended to open the strait” by force, Hussain said that the suggestion that the US will no longer ensure global shipping routes are flowing could be a a “fall of the Berlin Wall moment.”

“The entire basis of the American empire is that it’s a maritime empire,” said Hussain. “So if now, very perfunctorily, the US is saying, ‘We’re not going to defend one of the most important shipping lanes on the entire planet,’ where 20% of the world’s energy comes out of… It’s kind of like the Suez crisis, which put the nail in the coffin of the British empire.”

https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1nxeLyewNPnJX

Grim added that despite Hegseth’s claim that the US has “set the conditions for success” in the Strait of Hormuz, the Trump administration actually “took an open strait, made it closed, and are now going to walk away.”

The end result of the US and Israel’s decision to attack Iran could be the further isolation of the two countries, said Grim.

“If the US decides it doesn’t have the military capacity or willingness to open the strait violently, the idea that France is going to do it is preposterous,” he said. “What France would more likely do is call up Iran and say, ‘What’s the price?’… If you’re Israel and you’re calling Iran, you’re probably not going to get the same deal… You would imagine Iran would say, ‘Here’s what it costs, and it gets a little cheaper if you cut ties with Israel…’ All of a sudden, they’re a global player now, because they have this leverage.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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