Donald Trump’s response to this is to double down on his criticism of his allies and reveal that, while he rules in America, the US is sliding closer to being an outright enemy of the West.
According to several Western intelligence agencies and none other than the defence secretary of the United Kingdom, John Healey, Russia and Iran are “an axis of aggression” between Tehran and Moscow.
That aggression means that Iran has been getting Russian help, including the use of drones and electronic warfare and the tactical lessons the Kremlin has learned in the battlefields of Ukraine.
By any and every definition, that would make Russia an enemy of the US. This is not the first time that Western intelligence has informed the public that Russia has been helping Iran in fighting the US and Israel and in attacking US allies, including the UK, in and beyond the Gulf.
So far Trump has shrugged this off, suggesting that one should expect such behaviour from Moscow.
Then, rather than acknowledge that Russia is a problem – a problem that already threatens the security of Europe, has invaded Ukraine (a democracy) and even threatened to use battlefield nuclear weapons on European soil – Trump has had another swipe at the very organisation designed to defend America and its allies against Moscow.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president said this: “NATO NATIONS HAVE DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP WITH THE LUNATIC NATION, NOW MILITARILY DECIMATED, OF IRAN. THE U.S.A. NEEDS NOTHING FROM NATO, BUT “NEVER FORGET” THIS VERY IMPORTANT POINT IN TIME! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Some of the “help” from Nato nations like the UK, who have participated in ill-fated US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would have been quiet advice not to repeat the mistakes of either, or both.
It might have also included a reminder that only the US has ever evoked article five of Nato’s foundation document, requiring allies to come to the aid of a member state under attack.
Mr Healey might, if he felt included, have also mentioned that when the UK was invaded by Argentina in 1982 in the Falkland Islands, the US sat on its hands – a betrayal the British took in their stride.
But no. Having attacked Iran – based on the lie that Tehran was “two weeks away” from attacking Israel with a nuclear weapon, a hope for regime change and probably with an avaricious eye on Iran’s oil riches – Mr Trump attacks his allies as enemies and spits in the eyes of the nations he wants to help drag him out of the Iranian quagmire.
On top of that, according to the Washington Post, the US may soon renege on its commitment to sell air defence missiles to European countries, for use in Ukraine against Russia, in order to supply them to allies in the Gulf to fight off the drone and missile attacks that Russia has been helping Iran to launch at US targets.
President Trump has taken a solidly pro-Russian stand in all so-called “peace negotiations” that have been hosted by the US.
His negotiators have endorsed Russian demands for yet more Ukrainian territory and tried to paint Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as intransigent.
He cut military aid to Ukraine to zero more than a year ago and has said he wants to annex both Greenland and Canada, which are Nato members – serving the interests only of the Kremlin by undermining the stability of the alliance.
For good measure, along with his cabinet, he has adopted the “great replacement theory” – a racist conspiracy fever dream that Europe is being overrun by brown-skinned Muslims as central to its national strategy. Such madness works for Vladimir Putin, not America and not its allies.
Mr Trump claims to have “decimated” Iran’s military capabilities. Apart from not understanding that this means that 10 per cent, not all, of it has been destroyed, he also wants help from Nato to stop Iran blocking traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
This will not happen, British and other Nato members have said, until the “conditions improve” – in other words, until the war stops.
Mr Trump does not know how to do that. He is in strategic trouble that will backfire on him domestically and is likely to undermine support for Republicans in the mid-term elections.
European leaders are finally realising that the future of the West lies in abandoning a president who puts the interests of Russia above those of fellow Americans.
Soon, Republican candidates may realise this too.
