Iran is ‘the elephant in the room’ as NATO meets amid escalation fears – National

NATO allies will try to ensure that the summit of this week is not derailed by the repercussions of American military strikes IranSay the experts, but the conflict can still be “the elephant in the room”.

President Donald Trump on Monday evening announced that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran would be gradually eliminated over a period of 24 hours. However, the prospect of lasting peace between Iran, the United States and the wider Middle East remained uncertain on Tuesday, with Iran and Israel continue to exchange strikes and Trump openly expressing its frustration.

The two -day rally in The Hague should focus on stimulating allies’ defense expenses and reaffirming support for Ukraine, but one day begins after the launch of reprisal missile strikes on an American air base in Qatar.

It is unlikely that these attacks will start NATO Article 5 Commitment to collective self -defense, however, according to experts. Indeed

“NATO does not really have the mandate to get involved in the Middle East conflict, and they find it difficult to keep NATO to hang together,” said Andrea Charron, professor of political science and director of the Center for Defense and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba.

“I don’t think the Trump administration wants to negotiate a consensus in the protection of the United States”

All NATO allies must agree on the response to an invocation of article 5 with military actions of self -defense to support an attacked member. Article 5 is the principle of collective defense: an attack on a member of the military alliance constitutes an attack on all and will stimulate a joint response.

To date, article 5 has only been invoked once, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 against the United States, which led to limited NATO operations supporting American forces in the Middle East. These operations were finally overshadowed by the mission of the coalition against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The current situation in the Middle East is however very different.

The Trump administration was categorical about the fact that it does not continue war with Iran and that its strikes on Iranian nuclear installations during the weekend were in favor of Israel’s mission – another reason why experts say that NATO will not want to get involved.

“It is not an operation outside NATO,” said Andrew Rasiulis, former head of the Canadian Defense Department and a member of Canada Global Affairs Institute.

“The United States has not been attacked. This is the problem of Israel.”

The Qatar government said on Monday that it had managed to intercept most of the short and medium -range ballistic missiles launched by Iran at the Al Udeid air base, which houses American and Qatarian troops. Officials from the United States and Qatari said there were no victims.

Iran said that the attack corresponded to the number of American bombs fallen on its nuclear installations and that the targeted base was outside the populated areas, which suggests that Iran wanted to defuse.

Although a large -scale attack on a military base or an American embassy in a non -nato country could be considered a “very provocative” attack on American soil, others said that it would be enough to trigger an invocation of article 5.

“The bases are essentially like a rented property,” said Christian Leuprecht, main member of defense and security at Macdonald-Laurier Institute. In the case of the attack on the Qatari base, he declared that it would be up to Qatar to retaliate against a violation of his sovereignty.

He also compared the current Iranian response to that in 2020 after the United States killed the Iranian guard commander of the revolutionary Qasem Soleimani, who has not increased the conflict either.

However, he noted that Turkiye – who has long had tensions with Iran – also has a military base in Qatar, and “it is not entirely a question of left field” if it could invoke article 5 itself if this base is attacked.

A summit declaration in prepared text agreed by the governments of NATO and seen by Reuters says: “We reaffirm our reversal commitment to collective defense as devoted to article 5 of the Washington Treaty – that an attack on one is an attack on all.”

Experts have agreed that the broader question was whether the summit can be maintained together as the Middle East conflict evolves.

Trend now

• Ezra Miller has a “remorse” on past behavior, suggests Hollywood

• Sixteen billion passwords may have been stolen. Here’s how to protect yourself

Addressing journalists on Monday, the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, bypassed questions about Iran, claiming that the conflict was outside the NATO territory and was not among the main subjects of the summit.

However, he said that American strikes were not a violation of international law – contrasting with the declarations made by the leaders of NATO members, France and Norway – and that Iran should never develop nuclear weapons.

“The allies have repeatedly urged Iran to comply with its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty,” he said.

“This summit concerns the Euro -Atlantic zone, assuring us that we can defend ourselves against the Russians – very fast Russians.”

The brief statement of the summit will include a single reference to Russia as threat to Euro-Atlantic security and another to the commitment of the Allies to support Ukraine, Reuters reported.

NATO called Iran for having supported Russia war in Ukraine, including the supply of drones to the Russian army.

The Iranian Foreign Minister met on Monday the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had proposed to mediate on talks between Iran and Israel for a cease-fire.

The main realization of the NATO summit should be a formal agreement between all the allies to engage in a new objective of defense expenditure.

As part of the new plan, countries would spend 3.5% of GDP for the “basic defense” – such as weapons, troops – and an additional 1.5% on safety -related investments such as adaptation of roads, ports and bridges to be used by military vehicles, the protection of pipelines and the deterrence of cyber attacks.

This increase, to be gradual in more than 10 years, would mean hundreds of billions of dollars in additional defense.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will reach the previous objective of the Alliance, 2% of GDP, at the end of this exercise, with more than $ 9 billion in new investments.

This newly accelerated commitment was announced in the midst of continuous security and commercial negotiations with the United States

Trump called on NATO allies to increase defense expenses to 5% and criticized members who did not reach the old target. He described Canada as “lower payer” and “almost the lowest” in journalists’ comments on Friday.

The summit of this week is considered a victory for Trump, and the experts say that he wants to be at hand in Brussels to commemorate the commitment of higher expenses.

Leuprecht said that the American strikes on Iran have sent a message as strong to NATO as in Russia, China and the Middle East.

“Israel had to do the dirty work (in Iran) … so that the Americans can fly, drop the bomb and leave,” he said. “This is the message to Europeans: you will have to intensify (and) do the dirty job in terms of deterrence. Ditto with Canada.

“It is also a message to Putin and Xi Jinping, however, that when American interests are at stake and America traces the red lines, count on the Americans to engage.”

– with Reuters and Associated Press files