January
16, 2020
Article 5 of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance commits all members to participate
in the defense of any single member that is attacked. An attack on one is an
attack on all. Forged in the early stages of the cold war, the alliance
originally included most of the leading non-communist states in Western Europe,
as well as Turkey. It was intended to deter any attacks orchestrated by the
Soviet Union and was defensive in nature.
Currently NATO is an
anachronism as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but the desire to continue
to play soldier on an international stage has granted it a measure of life
support. Indeed, the alliance is regularly auditioning for new members. Its
latest addition is Montenegro, which has a military consisting of 2,000 men and
women, roughly one brigade. If Montenegro should be attacked, the United States
is obligated to come to its assistance.
It would all be something
like comic opera featuring the Duke of Plaza Toro but for the fact that there
are certain things that NATO does that are not really defensive in nature but
are rather destabilizing. Having expanded NATO right up to the border with
Russia, which the U.S. promised not to do and then reneged, military
exercises staged by the alliance currently occur right next to Russian airspace
and coastal waters. To support the incursions, the myth that Moscow is
expansionistic (while also seeking to destroy what passes for democracy in the
West) is constantly cited. According to the current version, Russian President
Vladimir Putin is just waiting to resume control over Ukraine, Georgia, Poland
and the Baltic States in an effort to reconstitute the old Soviet Union. This
has led to demands from the usual suspects in the U.S. Congress that Georgia and
Ukraine be admitted into the alliance, which would really create an existential
threat for Russia that it would have to respond to. There have also been some
suggestions that Israel might join NATO. A war that no one wants either in the
Middle East or in Europe could be the result if the expansion plans bear fruit.
Having nothing to do beyond
aggravating the Russians, the alliance has gone along with some of the
transnational abominations initially created by virtue of the Global War on
Terror initiated by the loosely wrapped American president George W. Bush. The
NATO alliance currently has 8,000 service members participating in a training
mission in Afghanistan and its key member states have also been parts of the
various coalitions that Washington has bribed or coerced into being. NATO was
also actively involved in the fiasco that turned Libya into a gangster state.
It had previously been the most developed nation in Africa. Currently French
and British soldiers are part of the
Operation Inherent Resolve (don’t you love the names!) in Syria and NATO itself is part of
the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
NATO will now be doing its
part to help defend the United States against terrorist attack. Last Wednesday
the alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with President Donald
Trump on the phone in the wake of the assassination of Iranian Major General
Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad International Airport. The killing was
apparently carried out using missiles fired by a U.S. Reaper drone and was
justified by the U.S. by claiming that Soleimani was a terrorist due to his
affiliation with the listed terrorist Quds Force. It was also asserted that
Soleimani was planning an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and would have
killed “hundreds” of Americans. Evidence supporting the claims was so flimsy
that even some Republicans balked at approving the chain of events.
Nine Iraqis also died in the
attack, including the Iraqi General who headed the Kata’Ib Hezbollah Militia,
which had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army to fight against the terrorist
group ISIS. During the week preceding the execution of Soleimani, the U.S. had
staged an air attack that killed 25 Iraqi members of Kata’Ib, the incident that
then sparked the rioting at the American Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Bearing in mind that the
alleged thwarted terrorist attacks took place seven thousand miles away from
the United States, it is hard to make the case that the U.S. was directly
threatened requiring a response from NATO under Article 5. No doubt the Mike
Pompeo State Department will claim that its Embassy is sovereign territory and
therefor part of the United States. It is a bullshit argument, but it will no
doubt be made. The White House has already made a similar sovereignty claim
vis-à-vis the two U.S. bases in Iraq that were hit by a barrage of a dozen
Iranian missiles a day after the killing of Soleimani. Unlike the case of
Soleimani and his party, no one was killed by the Iranian attacks, quite
possibly a deliberate mis-targeting to avoid an escalation in the conflict.
In spite of the fact that
there was no actual threat and no factual basis for a call to arms, last
Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke by phone with
President Donald Trump “on developments in the Middle East.” A NATO press
release stated that the two men discussed “the situation in the region and
NATO’s role.”
According to the press
release “The President asked the Secretary General for NATO to become more
involved in the Middle East. They agreed that NATO could contribute more to
regional stability and the fight against international terrorism.” A tweet by
White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere later
confirmed that
Trump had “emphasized the value of NATO increasing its role in preventing
conflict and preserving peace in the Middle East.” Prior to the phone call,
Trump had announced that he would ask NATO “to become much more involved
in the Middle East process.”
As the Trumpean concept of a
peace process is total surrender on the part of the targeted parties, be they
Palestinians or Iranians, it will be interesting to see just how the new
arrangement works. Sending soldiers into unstable places to do unnecessary
things as part of a non-existent strategy will not sit well with many
Europeans. It should not sit well with Americans either.
Philip GIRALDI
Ph.D., Executive Director of
the Council for the National Interest.
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