Donald Trump-Europe rift is not just a gulf about the Gulf

London: Britain’s former spy chief cut through the political noise about the war in Iran with two observations that highlighted the quicksand beneath US President Donald Trump and the dilemma for American allies who are being branded “cowards” for refusing to follow the US president into his conflict.

Sir Alex Younger, who led MI6 under three prime ministers over six years, said Iran had gained the upper hand in the war because of its strategy of escalating the strikes across the Middle East and its move to globalise the cost of the war by blocking oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

“They’ve understood the significance of the energy war and held the Straits at threat,” he told The Economist in recent days. “So they’ve played a weak hand pretty well.”

He added that Trump had begun a war of choice, while the Iranian leaders were in a fight for their existence. “That’s imbued them with more staying power than the US,” he said.

Younger said he came to this conclusion with regret because of his years of working against the Iranian regime. But his remarks go to the heart of the mounting doubts about Trump’s judgment, given the glaring evidence that the president was ill-prepared for the Iranian move to weaponise the oil trade. And they help explain the refusal of European leaders to support Trump’s war.

The second observation from the former MI6 chief, who left the service in 2020, was that Britain and other NATO allies had outsourced their security to the United States for too long and had to do more to wield their own military power.

“This is the moment where we actually, kind of, amend our relationship with hard power and understand that without that, we’re just going to be prey to other people’s ambitions,” he said.

“That is overdue. This is the time where Britain and Europe need to regain [their] capacity to exercise hard power. And here’s the rub: I actually think we’ll have a better relationship with America once we do that.”

So many things are being said about the war, and so much by Trump himself at a blinding speed on social media, that it pays to step back from the hour-by-hour news and consider the challenge for America and its allies.

The war has not gone to plan and Trump has no clear way out. Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to stay positive at a G7 meeting in Paris on Friday, saying the war would end “in a matter of weeks” rather than months. He also claimed the US could win without sending ground troops, even as the US sends thousands of troops to the Middle East.

In fact, elements of the Iranian regime can wreak havoc in the Strait of Hormuz even if their leaders are assassinated in airstrikes. And the US allies in Europe – and in Australia – have good reason to stay out of Trump’s quicksand. His new deadline for a deal with Iran – April 6 – continues the confusion about his end-game.

Younger said he thought the United Kingdom and Europe had been “infantilised” by their security shield from America over the decades. Well, they seem ready to grow up. They are going their own way on Iran.

Trump complains about this in capital letters. At dawn on Thursday in Washington, DC, he took to social media to say that NATO countries had done “absolutely nothing” to help the US and that he would never forget this. This is not true, of course: the European help is modest, but real.

The key point is that Trump is discovering he cannot command trust from allies after threatening NATO members over their defence spending, surprising friends with costly tariffs and threatening to seize Greenland despite a long-lasting pact with Denmark over the Arctic territory.

Most of all, Trump has been weak on the defence of Ukraine: shifting his stance, withdrawing US funding and favouring endless negotiations with Russia rather than a more decisive approach.

The split with Europe has been a long time coming. It is not just a gulf about the Gulf.

This is a personal rupture for British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who charmed Trump with royal invitations last year but is now the butt of jokes. (Trump reposted a TV sketch making fun of the prime minister last weekend). Starmer made a series of conflicting decisions on whether to allow the US to use UK bases for the Iran attacks, before allowing their use for defensive purposes, and he is unpopular at home. But he is on side with voters on the war: a YouGov poll shows 59 per cent oppose the US military action against Iran.

Starmer is not alone in breaking with Trump over the war. French President Emmanuel Macron has criticised the US action, as have Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Even when NATO members have mobilised to defend their interests in the Middle East, they have done so in a limited way that does not endorse Trump or his decisions.

Most European powers stayed out of the war on Iraq in 2003 and remained US allies. But foreign policy researcher Sophia Gaston, a visiting fellow at King’s College London, says there is a more recent history involved.

“It is not so much the memory of the Iraq War but the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 which looms large in the mind of European allies, who lost their agency at the whim of the Americans’ poor planning, but were forced to deal with the consequences, including absorbing large numbers of refugees,” she says.

“European leaders are anxious about the downstream effects of a Middle Eastern conflict on their citizens, given the fragile state of economic growth, the prolonged impacts of Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the sensitivities around migration. At a time when European governments are struggling to project a sense of control and stability to their populations, becoming part of a war with shifting objectives and uncertain outcomes is a challenging ask.”

This is not only seen as an affront to Trump. It is also another breach between the Europeans and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who urged Trump to commit to the attacks on February 28. It further isolates Netanyahu from European leaders after many of them moved last year to recognise a Palestinian state.

There is a case for some European action because of the way the Iranian regime has lashed out at so many targets. First came a drone strike on the UK airfield at Akrotiri in Cyprus, then a missile strike on an Italian base in Erbil in the Kurdish region of Iraq. There were no injuries. Then the US media revealed that Iran had aimed two long-range missiles at the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a British territory and American air base.

The Israel Defence Forces used this to warn that Europe was under direct threat because the missiles could fly as far as 4000 kilometres, issuing a map on social media to highlight this danger. Netanyahu cited this to urge Europe to join the attacks on Iran. “What more proof do you need that this regime that threatens the entire world has to be stopped?” he said last Sunday.

In fact, neither of the missiles reached their target. One was shot down by a US warship. The second failed in flight. According to a report in The Times, the second one fell after travelling about 3200 kilometres. These were said to be Khorramshahr-4 missiles, which might be capable of longer distances if carrying lighter payloads. But there is no public data on the missile strikes – just leaks to the media. Nobody has confirmed exactly where the second missile fell.

The result is an argument about war based on feelings, not facts. The conservative media in London is urging Starmer to join Trump in the war, but is vague about the ships or troops to be put in harm’s way. The debate about the war is reduced to cheap jibes from the White House – such as Trump calling British aircraft carriers “toys” compared to their US equivalents. He dismisses allied help, then complains when he does not get it.

Rubio took a softer line with allies at a G7 meeting in Paris on Friday, but this is now a common dynamic. The US Secretary of State will be diplomatic, only for his boss to turn on allies again.

Behind the political posturing is the actual assistance between allies. US bombers are using the Royal Air Force base at Fairford, near the Cotswolds, to mount some of their strikes. Germany hosts a mammoth logistics hub, hospital and airfield at Ramstein. France is hosting US refuellers at the Istres-Le Tube air base near Marseilles, while Italy has done the same thing at Aviano, north of Venice.

The US Navy’s most modern aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was sent to the Greek island of Crete for repairs at a naval base after a fire broke out on board. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Portuguese air base in the Azores hosted US refuelling aircraft. The only country to refuse any support was Spain.

What the European leaders will not do, however, is commit to an active role in a war that was decided without them and is now doing untold damage to the world economy and, therefore, their own citizens.

‘Outside of international law’

There are at least five reasons for Britain and other European nations to stay out of this war. The first is the fact established as soon as the missiles landed in Tehran on February 28: Trump did not consult European leaders on the strikes and made his decision after talks with Netanyahu. In demanding that other allies pledge their support after the fact, Trump asks them for a blank cheque.

The second reason is the doubt over Trump’s central claim to justify the airstrikes: that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. When International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi was asked about this in early March, he said there was no “structured program” to make these weapons. When asked on CNN if the Iranians were days or weeks away from building a bomb, Grossi said: “No.”

The third is the consensus in Europe that Trump has embarked on an illegal war. Starmer called it “unlawful action” in its first days, while Macron called it “outside of international law” and Sanchez said it was a “violation” of the law, as well as unjustified and dangerous.

Weighing against this legal argument, of course, is the repression of the Iranian regime – and the way it has funded terrorism for much of its 47 years. The human rights of Iranian protesters and political prisoners, and victims of the regime beyond its borders, also count in this debate.

More important than the law is the realpolitik: the fourth factor is the concern that Trump does not know how he will end the war. Iran is refusing to give him an unconditional surrender, as he demanded early on.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius summed this up in his remarks to the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday. “There is no clear objective,” he said. “And the worst thing, from my perspective, is there is no exit strategy.”

No consultation. No legal grounds. No consistent objective. And no exit strategy. No wonder European leaders are unwilling to join the war. But there is a fifth factor – and it is central to the argument about how to secure the Strait of Hormuz. Trump wants help to open the oil trade, but sending ships into the Strait only makes it easy for Iranian forces to target them with drones.

“Securing the Strait of Hormuz is an American objective in search of an American strategy,” wrote David Roberts of King’s College London, for the Royal United Services Institute on March 24.

“Iran’s coastline is long, complex and deeply familiar terrain for its irregular maritime forces.

“Destroying every potential launch platform for missiles, drones or mine-laying vessels is not a realistic operational objective. One or two successful Iranian strikes per day may be the irreducible cost of any sustained naval operation in these waters.”

Starmer, Macron and other leaders have issued a statement of support for freedom of navigation through the Gulf. “We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait,” they said. Australia has joined the 33 nations backing the statement.

This grand statement stops short, however, of committing real forces. When France convened a video conference on Thursday with officials from dozens of countries, it issued a statement saying the plans were strictly defensive and would operate only after the cessation of hostilities. European leaders emphasised this again at the G7 meeting on Friday in Paris.

Trump has dispatched thousands of marines and paratroopers to the Gulf over the past week, and major US news sites report he may send 10,000 more. The mystery is how he will use them – and whether he can bring the global energy crisis under control.

We cannot be sure how this war will end. The Iranian regime does not deserve to survive, and Trump has enormous resources to bring about its destruction. But the past four weeks have revealed the glaring gaps in his judgment and strategy. For American allies in Europe, the safest approach is to keep their distance.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.