NATO Secretary General full of praise for Trump
Washington DC correspondent Zach Montellaro spoke to Lisa Owen about Donald Trump riding a high after his trip to the NATO summit in the Netherlands. NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte was full of praise for the president who he called "daddy", referring to Trump's handling of the Israel-Iran conflict. The US president has long demanded all members in the alliance bump up their defence spend.
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RNZ News
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Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says US 'gained nothing' from attacks
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Scoop
3 hours ago
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Luxon Departs NATO Summit After Meeting With Ukraine's Zelensky
The prime minister said his two days' attendance at the NATO summit was worthwhile for New Zealand, calling the alliance an important partner and praising commitments to defence spending and supporting Ukraine. At the summit in The Hague, the alliance's 32 European and North American countries agreed to increase their defence spending to 5 percent of GDP within a decade. Participants also agreed to an "ironclad commitment to collective defence as enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - that an attack on one is an attack on all", easing European fears that US President Donald Trump was wavering on that commitment. The final communique followed days of lavish praise from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, in the hope Trump - who had been sceptical of the alliance - would not derail the summit. At a news conference on Wednesday morning (local time), Rutte went as far as saying "sometimes Daddy needs to use strong language," when asked about Trump's expletive-laden quip at Israel and Iran on Tuesday. But the deference seemed to work. After the summit, Trump confirmed his support for the alliance. "I left here differently," he told a news conference. "I left here saying that these people really love their countries, it's not a rip-off and we're here to help them protect their country." New Zealand is not a NATO member, so while the alliance's leaders were meeting in an auditorium in The Hague, Luxon was meeting with other partners including the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Australian deputy prime minister Richard Marles. He then held a bilateral meeting with Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky. "I think he's feeling incredibly supported," Luxon said after the meeting. "I think, you know, this is a big win for Ukraine as well. 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He held formal meetings with 11 leaders - including breakfast with the new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney - and had brief interactions with many more on the sidelines or at a state dinner at the Dutch King's palace on Tuesday. 'Historic' NATO meeting "It's been a pretty historic NATO in the regard of a commitment to spending, which has been really important," Luxon said." Throughout, Luxon has tried to stress that any pressure that had been placed upon NATO members to increase defence spending did not apply to New Zealand. The prime minister said the fact everyone had increased their spending underscored the "existential threat to democracy" posed by the war in Ukraine. "There's a crisis unifying this region very, very quickly. That has focused the minds and actually made all the countries come together to make this commitment, which is no mean feat." He described the countries as having mature MMP environments with multi-party coaltions, and being a coalition themselves as a NATO block. "To be able to pull all that together, to focus, to get to the outcome and the commitment in place, is really important." Luxon said the war in Ukraine came up in every conversation he had had. In his meeting with Indo-Pacific 4 grouping, representatives had reaffirmed support for Ukraine and committed to working together to make purchasing defence equipment more efficient. "As we all are increasing our defence spending, we don't want to see the price of defence assets going up and defense companies making increased margins." He said it was a "real opportunity" for countries to work together on procurement, and get efficiency, scale and interoperability into the purchases. In particular, he raised the concern that an increase in defence spending would result in huge amounts of money going toward the defence industry. "Because each country comes with its own bespoke asks and they want some customisation, some difference, you end up paying for that." Luxon said their conversations included a desire to work together to get a "maximum return" to "genuinely upgrade your capability." "You just don't want to pay more for delivering the same capability." He wouldn't charactise New Zealand as being at the "back of the queue" of the arms race, given a step up in the country's budget as well. He also indicated the developing defence industry in New Zealand that could benefit by contributing to European procurement. He said there was a connection between the Euro-Atlantic and Pacific region, and affirming that was also about differentiating themselves from the countries supporting Russian in the war against Ukraine. Luxon said that highlighted the separation in simple terms. He also said he'd raised with China the need to use any influence it has over North Korea and Russia to reduce harm in the war against Ukraine. Luxon spoke about a "coordinated" and "concerted" effort bilaterally by "those four powers" Iran, China, North Korea and Russia "against the West."
Scoop
4 hours ago
- Scoop
Why Asia-Pacific Should Be Rooting For Iran
Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month. The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilize, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the U.S-Israeli dyad. The good news for my region is that Iran's resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the U.S. pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China. There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth. Iran is the weakest. If Iran falls, war in our region – intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely. Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs. 'Tomorrow', people in this part of the world naively think, 'will always be like yesterday'. That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here's why. U.S. chooses war to re-shape the Middle East Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn't supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries. In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi's Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all: the Islamic Republic of Iran. One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive Presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success – if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of. With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years. A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft. Now – with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered ('We came, we saw, he died', Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine – the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns – or, rather, bombs – on the great prize: Iran. Iran's missiles have checked U.S.-Israel for the time being Things did not go to plan. Former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours. Iran's missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the U.S. will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over: a serious pivot to Asia. Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into a powderkeg? For us in Asia-Pacific a major U.S. pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric – all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg. Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world – bellum Americanum – as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask? Back in the days of George W Bush, radical American thinkers like Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld created the Project for a New American Century and developed the policy, adopted by succeeding presidents, that promotes "the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces". It reconfirmed the neoconservative American dogma that no power should be allowed to rise in any region to become a regional hegemon; anything and everything necessary should be done to ensure continued American primacy, including the resort to war. What has changed since those days are two crucial, epoch-making events: the re-emergence of Russia as a great power, albeit the weakest of the three, and the emergence of China as a genuine peer competitor to the USA. Professor John Mearsheimer's insights are well worth studying on this topic. The three pillars of multipolarity A new world order really is being born. As geopolitical thinkers like Professor Glenn Diesen point out, it will, if it is not killed in the cradle, replace the U.S. unipolar world order that has existed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Many countries are involved in its birthing, including major players like India and Brazil and all the countries that are part of BRICS. Three countries, however, are central to the project: Iran, Russia and, most importantly, China. All three are in the crosshairs of the Western Empire. If Iran, Russia and China survive as independent entities, they will partially fulfill Halford MacKinder's early 20th century heartland theory that whoever dominates Eurasia will rule the world. I don't think MacKinder, however, foresaw cooperative multipolarity on the Eurasian landmass – which is one of the goals of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) – as an option. That, increasingly, appears to be the most likely trajectory with multiple powerful states that will not accept domination, be that from China or the U.S. That alone should give us cause for hope. Drunk on power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has launched war after war and brought us to the current abandonment of economic sanity (the sanctions-and-tariff global pandemic) and diplomatic normalcy (kill any peace negotiators you see) – and an anything-goes foreign policy (including massive crimes against humanity). We have also reached – thanks in large part to these same policies – what a former US national security advisor warned must be avoided at all costs. Back in the 1990s Zbigniew Brzezinski said, "The most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran." Belligerent and devoid of sound strategy, the Biden and Trump administrations have achieved just that. Can Asia-Pacific avoid being dragged into an American war on China? Turning to our region, New Zealand and Australia's governments cleave to yesterday: a white-dominated world led by the USA. We have shown ourselves indifferent to massacres, ethnic cleansing and wars of aggression launched by our team. To avoid war – or a permanent fear of looming war – in our own backyards, we need to encourage sanity and diplomacy; we need to stay close to the U.S. but step away from the military alliances they are forming, such as AUKUS which is aimed squarely at China. Above all, our defence and foreign affairs elites need to grow new neural pathways and start to think with vision and not place ourselves on the losing side of History. Independent foreign policy settings based around peace, defence not aggression, diplomacy not militarisation, would take us in the right direction. Personally I look forward to the day the US and its increasingly belligerent vassals are pushed back into the ranks of ordinary humanity. I fear the U.S. far more than I do China. Despite the reflexive adherence to the US that our leaders are stuck on, we should not, if we value our lives and our cultures, allow ourselves to be part of this mad, doomed project. The US Empire is heading into a blood-drenched sunset; their project will fail and the 500-year empire of the White West will end – starting and finishing with genocide. Every day I atheistically pray that leaders or a movement will emerge to guide our antipodean countries out of the clutches of a violent and increasingly incoherent USA. America is not our friend. China is not our enemy. Tomorrow gives birth to a world that we should look forward to and do the little we can to help shape. Eugene Doyle
