Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Allies Decline Trump Invitation to Fight Iran
Donald Trump has mocked and threatened America's allies for the entirety of his second term and did so for most of his first. Complaining that they are ripping off America and cowering under the American nuclear umbrella, he has damaged the trust upon which any alliance depends. He has erred terribly in his war with Iran, believing the Iranians would not close the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. They have done so, and he now wants those same allies he abused to come to his rescue. Almost without exception, their reply has been "not our war, so not our problem."
Where the administration went wrong is in presuming their Venezuela solution of replacing an intractable president of the country with one more willing to work with the US would also work in Iran. To think that a Latin American Marxist dictatorship and an Islamic republican dictatorship would behave alike was always foolish. When the Iranian government did not collapse in 48 hours, the White House was out of ideas. When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, the White House was caught flat-footed. It turns out allied support might be needed
The president whined to the press, "I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory. It's the place from which they get their energy. And they should come and they should help us protect it. Why are we maintaining the Hormuz Strait when it's really there for China and many other countries? Why aren't they doing it?"
Why should they? It is NOT their territory and oil is a fungible commodity. If one cannot buy it from the Gulf States, one can buy it elsewhere, driving up prices in the US along with the rest of the planet. Any first year economics student would know that.
The German response to the request for help is telling. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, "This is not our war. We have not started it. What does . . . Trump expect a handful or two handfuls of European frigates to do in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful US Navy cannot do?"
On March 7, the president opined about British assistance, "That's OK, Prime Minister (Keir) Starmer, we don't need them any longer," President Trump posted on social media. "But we will remember. We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won!" Now, he wants their help.
Were Sir Keir a more ruthless politician, he could use this to great advantage. He could say, "Sure we will help. What is in it for us?" Then, he should propose a zero tariffs free-trade zone with the US established by treaty with mechanisms for preventing whimsical moves by a rogue president from re-introducing them. And negotiations can take a while. Time is not on the side of Mr. Trump. He would have to cave in publicly, and if he does not, he loses his war.
In all likelihood, he has already lost. Part of the problem is that he never really defined why the US was at war. Numerous reasons have come out of the administration, none convincing: regime change, degradation of the nuclear and ballistic missile programs, elimination of support for proxies, and so on. If one cannot state the goal, it is hard to say it has been achieved.
Beyond that, Iran is not fighting the US militarily. There the US will always come out ahead. So, Iran is fighting by destabilizing the global economy. One must remember that the American electrorate threw Joe Biden and Kamala Harris away because the price of eggs during a bird flu outbreak was too high. Iran knows that if gasoline rises enough in price, this unpopular war grows more unpopular. And there are elections in November.
There is an apocryphal story about an American general visiting Vietnam years after the war and meeting with General Giap who led the communists to victory. The American stated "You never defeated us on the battlefield." General Giap allegedly said, "That is true. It is also irrelevant."
War is not about killing people and destroying property so much as it is about breaking the other side's will to resist. The Trump administration has yet to learn that.
The decline under the Trump administration continues to accelerate.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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