How long can NATO go on?

Since the UK joined the European Economic Community, preparing the way for its steady enlargement, the EU has lacked a foreign policy worthy of the name. Sometimes more is less: the EU has made long-winded compromises instead of assertions, been self-effacing rather than strong. A few examples illustrate the point: a majority of current member states have taken part in US imperialistic adventures (16 were involved in the war in Iraq). The EU goes along with US interference in Latin America, hence its absurd recognition of the Venezuelan opposition as the legal government. It pretends to oppose the whims of the Trump administration, but falls into line as soon as the US threatens punishment (for example, by imposing economic sanctions on companies trading with Iran). Europe had far greater influence in the Middle East before it began to expand. De Gaulle opposed the UK’s accession to the EEC because he thought it would become a Trojan horse for the US, but Washington no longer has any reason to fear Brexit: over the years, the EU has become an entire US stable.

US domination is even more humiliating in defence. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), founded during the cold war, is the tool of that domination. US approval is enough for one member to colonise another (Turkey has occupied part of Cyprus for 45 years) or treat a neighbour as a ‘buffer zone’ — the Turkish army, NATO’s second-largest, has just invaded Syria to destroy the Kurdish autonomous administration (see Turkey and Russia redraw the map in northeast Syria, in this issue). The US does not object as long as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s regime continues to watch one of Russia’s maritime borders, buy 60% of its arms from the US and host US nuclear warheads. NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, a US puppet referred to as ‘the Norwegian Tony Blair’, doesn’t mind much: he expects Turkey to ‘act with restraint and in coordination with other allies so that we can preserve the gains we have made against our common enemy, Daesh [ISIS].’

The chaos in the Middle East was caused by the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 on false pretences. The US went on, with others, to trigger a war in Libya, then, acting alone, withdrew from the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, signed in one of its rare moments of sanity in the past decade. In October, as Donald Trump abandoned the Kurds to the Turkish army without consulting his European ‘allies’ in NATO, who were present on the ground, he posted an admirably frank tweet: ‘I hope they all do great, we are 7,000 miles away!’ By continuing to submit to this capricious master, who has only his own interests at heart, one effectively accepts permanent relegation to the rank of a protectorate. If Europe is to escape, it must leave NATO (1)