According to Reuters, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised the United States on Wednesday, June 24 for its campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, telling reporters after a White House meeting with President Donald Trump that Iran had long exported chaos and terrorism and had come close to acquiring nuclear weapons, a development he said would have threatened the region and the wider world. Trump, for his part, used the meeting to air his displeasure with several European allies, faulting them for what he described as inadequate support during the American military action against Iran.
Rutte said Iran had come close to a nuclear weapon and praised the US action
After the meeting, Rutte said he wanted to make clear how important the American action on Iran had been. The United States acted, he said, first to confront Iran’s growing nuclear capability, which by his account had come close to being realized and would have endangered both the Middle East and global security. “This is, first of all, about the nuclear capability Iran was basically getting its hands on—and it would have been a threat to the region. It would’ve been a threat to the whole world,” he said.
Rutte went on to criticize Iran’s long record of supporting and exporting extremism. He called it a country that exports chaos and exports terrorism, and said it had come very close to acquiring nuclear capabilities. At the recent Group of Seven summit, he noted, leaders had broadly welcomed the degrading of Iran’s nuclear program. The American action, Rutte said, served international security and stability, and he cast it as a leader of the free world shouldering responsibility for the United States and for the rest of the world as well.
Trump said European allies had let the US down during the war
Trump used the meeting to register his dissatisfaction with how European allies had behaved during the American campaign against Iran. “We were let down,” he said, adding that the United States had needed no help and had demolished Iran in the first week of the war. A public show of support, he said, would still have been welcome. “We didn’t even need their help, but it would have been nice if they had said, ‘We’d like to help.’ They didn’t,” he said. Trump added that he believed Rutte would find a way to assist the United States if the need arose.
He then named several European governments. “I was disappointed with Italy. I was disappointed with the UK,” he said. Of the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, Trump suggested he was on his way out and beset by problems. Starmer announced on June 22 that he would step down as prime minister and Labour Party leader, though he is staying on in a caretaker role until his party selects a successor. Trump said he was also disappointed with Germany and France, and with most of the allies. Of Spain, he said the country was “a horror show.”
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