The world avoided Iran having its own “North Korea moment” where endless diplomacy and talks took so long it gave Pyongyang time to build a nuclear bomb, and the world is safer now than it was five weeks ago, Mark Rutte said.
The world is “absolutely” safer now than it was five weeks ago because the United States took the initiative to “degrade” Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities the Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte said on Wednesday after meetings with President Donald Trump. Speaking to CNN, the former Dutch Prime Minister turned alliance chief acknowledged that President Trump is “he is clearly disappointed with many NATO allies, and I can see his point” but emphasised that the “large majority of NATO allies have been helpful with logistics, basing, overflights” for Operation Epic Fury and NATO as a whole understands the importance of preventing Iran from becoming nuclear.
Challenged by the CNN host on whether it wouldn’t have been better to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb with diplomacy rather than strikes, Rutte compared the situation with North Korea where years of talks dragged on so long, Pyongyang eventually succeeded in getting its own nuclear bomb before the international community could figure out what to do about it. He said of NATO backing Trump preventing the same thing happening with Iran:
NATO allies are with him when it comes to the aims of taking out… degrading the nuclear and the ballistic missile capacity of the Iranians… we run the risk that this leads you to the North Korea moment where you talk so long, at a certain moment it’s beyond the point where you can still get this done, because then they would get their hands on the nuclear capacity… I support the President and I know large parts of Europe do when it comes to taking out the capacity of Iran to export chaos to the region, to Europe, to the whole world.
They are one of the main enablers of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, we all know this with the drones, it is an existential threat to Israel if they get their hands on a nuclear capability. It’s great to try and negotiate it away, but we also always knew that with North Korea it took too long and then North Korea had its hands on nuclear and you cannot negotiate any longer. They have that power.
What is now an alternate future where President Trump didn’t step in to prevent a nuclear Iran would have been “a big risk for Europe, it’s existential for Israel, it’s existential for the Middle East”, so the whole world is now safer, Rutte said. Stating that NATO and Europe really is cognisant to the importance of this change, he said:
…the whole world is safer by this President degrading those capabilities. This is by many in Europe acknowledged and they understand that continuing talking to get this done would have brought us potentially past that moment where you can still deal with it… NATO has always taken the position that degrading these capabilities of nuclear and the ballistic missiles is crucial and that Iran can never get its hands on those two capabilities.
There is widespread support [within the alliance] for that… this is thanks to President Trump’s leadership. Degrading these capabilities is really very important for your and my safety here in the U.S., in Europe, in the Middle East.
The remarks came as President Trump expressed his frustration with those NATO allies who had vocally stood against the Iranian mission, chiefly among them socialist Spain. President Trump said he was considering withdrawing troops from less deserving members and adding more to those who were best behaved within the alliance.
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