Trump's anger over Iran thrusts NATO into fresh crisis

The NATO alliance has in recent years survived existential challenges - ranging from the war in Ukraine to multiple bouts of pressure and insults from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has questioned its core mission and threatened to seize Greenland, Reuters reported.

But it is the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, thousands of miles from Europe, that has nearly broken ​the 76-year-old bloc and threatens to leave it in its weakest state since its creation, say analysts and diplomats.

Trump, enraged that European countries have declined to send their navies to open up the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping ‌following the start of the air war on Feb 28, has declared he is considering withdrawing from the alliance.

"Wouldn't you if you were me?" Trump asked Reuters in a Wednesday interview.

In a speech on Wednesday night, Trump criticized U.S. allies but stopped short of condemning NATO, as many experts thought he might.

But combined with other barbs aimed at Europeans in recent weeks, Trump's comments have provoked unprecedented concern that the U.S. will not come to the aid of European allies should they be attacked, whether or not Washington formally walks away.

The result, say analysts and diplomats, is that the alliance created in the Cold War that has long served as the basic fabric of European ​security is fraying and the mutual defense agreement at its core is no longer taken as a given.

This is the worst place (NATO) has been since it was founded," said Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who now leads the Europe, Russia, and ​Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"It's really hard to think of anything that even comes close."

That reality is sinking in for Europeans, who have counted on NATO as a ⁠bulwark against an increasingly assertive Russia.

As recently as February, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte had dismissed the idea of Europe defending itself without the U.S. as a "silly thought." Now, many officials and diplomats consider it the default expectation.

"NATO remains necessary, but we must be capable of thinking of NATO ​without the Americans," said General Francois Lecointre, who served as France's armed forces chief from 2017 to 2021.

Whether it should even continue to be called NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization - is a valid question."

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies ​clear, and as the President emphasized, ‘the United States will remember.’”

A NATO representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.