One would have to cut a deal with one of the other countries on the Caspian to base aircraft from, and maybe smaller patrol boats. Not sure Azerbaijan Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan would go for it though.
President Donald Trump has been in regular contact with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during the war, according to White House officials cited by The New York Times.
Several officials told the NYT that Mohammed bin Salman has been urging Trump to continue striking Iran hard.
To my mind, Australia hasn't said no exactly but wants no part of the debacle and so is being evasive in an attempt at avoiding retaliation. From The Guardian.
The article I'm pulling that from is entitled "Japan and Australia say they have no plans to send ships to strait of Hormuz as Trump increases pressure", but to me the headline is more decisive than the incredibly limited messaging warrants. It's the transport minister saying "no current plans", not the defense minister or PM saying "no plans." Perhaps that's intentional diplomacy.
If other NATO nations they think about it, it's not just Trump.
On top of that, Obama wanted to "pivot to Asia", so the even the sane US leaders wanted to move away from Europe to a certain extent. The world order of the cold war has been dissolving for a while now, and it's not coming back. The sanity / insanity of each president only modifies the velocity and orderliness of the process, that's all.
Please come fight the war we already won or we won't defend you if you're attacked, like we already said we probably wouldn't.
Why would ANYONE want to help. The last countries that helped the US with a mess the US had created were thrown under the bus just last month
I don't see this as a threat to NATO. What it's saying is that it's a bad sign for the future of NATO if it cannot muster a response to its members getting hit by rockets. I agree. Same can be said about Russia's ongoing violation of NATO airspace with their drones.
You don't see it as a threat to NATO that Trump explicitly says it'll be bad for NATO's future if they don't come and help with the war he already won? The guy who already threatened for years to not fulfill NATO obligations if Russia were to attack?
Who could have foreseen this happening? Apart from literally everyone who thought about it for more than a second? How about building a coalition to police this situation before causing it? No, that would be too simple. Instead you threaten to invade your allies first, shit on their contribution to your previous Middle East wars second and then invade without telling anyone third.
Nobody's rooting for the Iranian regime here, despite what you seemingly want to believe.
Why would we believe otherwise? Despite it's failings, this is the kind of thing the US military is exceptionally good at, and it bloody well should be: it's spent decades and trillions of dollars equipping and practicing to be very good at blowing shit up via missile and guided bomb.
This is the FAFO moment for the US, maybe their Suez Crisis moment. Denigrate & threaten the nations that have hitherto been your most faithful allies, slap senseless tariffs on us, seemingly support the preeminent hostile power that presents an existential threat to us on our continent, and then expect us to put our servicemen's lives on the line to help extricate you from a mess purely of your own creation? No. Fuck that.
"its members getting hit by rockets" no European territory is being hit by rockets at the moment, it's been a long time since any European country has had colonial possessions in the Gulf. And very little European-owned shipping is flagged in Europe. If ship owners don't want the obligations and taxation of getting flagged in their country, they certainly can't expect the country's naval protection.
One minor quibble, a drone struck British sovereign territory on the island Cyprus (imperial history gets you these things) launched by a militant group from either Iraq or Lebanon. While not launched by Iran, it was launched by one of their close friends.
I think you mean around 150. Turns out, "casualty" isn't short for dead, and war injuries can be life altering.
Yeah I am definitely using reality in a reductionist way; to me the basis for reality is that everything has consequence as it interacts. Laws of energy, motion etc. Most of us have to deal with much more social consequences, which is your point if I understand correctly. It's bigger than that to me, Trump's whole 'reality' is an alien hellscape and I'm glad I'm not born into that world every moment I'm alive.
In any case, no need for Article 5 when the atttack is so minor that a nation can deal with it itself.
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