On Thursday 26 March, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte once again backed the American-Israeli attacks on Iran, justifying the fact that the Americans had not, “for good reasons”, consulted the Allies in order to create a surprise effect.
“Iran is an exporter of chaos”. That is why I “applauded” the degrading of Iran’s military capabilities by the United States, said Mr Rutte. According to him, these attacks, which Tehran claims have killed 1,900 civilians, are in line with NATO’s traditional position that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons or the capacity to launch long-range ballistic missiles.
The example of the Iranian missiles fired at the British atoll Diego Garcia shows that Iranian capabilities are “increasingly dangerous for the Allies”, he said. He promised that NATO would defend every part of the territory of its member countries, as was the case with the interception of three missiles en route to Turkey.
The former Dutch Prime Minister also felt that it was normal for European countries to need time to get organised and respond to Washington’s request to become involved in the conflict. He underlined the “leadership” of countries such as “the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands” in setting up a coalition of thirty countries, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Gulf states, with the aim of securing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz after a ceasefire.
“What actions, when and where to launch them? The UK is leading efforts to answer these questions”, noted Mr Rutte.
Presenting the annual report on NATO's activities in 2025 to the press, the Secretary General welcomed the fact that all NATO countries now devote more than 2% of their GDP to defence. At the Ankara summit in July, he invited them to say how they intended to meet the commitment set at 5.0% of GDP by 2035 (see EUROPE 13667/1).
“Without Mr Trump, I don’t think this would have happened” stressed Mr Rutte.
With regard to Ukraine, he provided assurances that arms purchases from the United States, via the PURL mechanism, were “continuing”, regardless of the war in the Middle East. The fact remains that Europe must produce more armaments for its own security and better integrate technological innovation into defence equipment, he said.
See NATO’s annual report: https://aeur.eu/f/lcv (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)