Nordic table talk
In Helsinki last week, 10 European leaders met for a private dinner without their officials and aides in the intimate surroundings of the Mannerheim Museum, the home of Finland’s World War II leader Gustaf Mannerheim.
Amid the 1940s interiors, decorated with the former president’s hunting trophies, the leaders of countries including the U.K, Sweden, Finland and Norway held a frank discussion about the dire state of the transatlantic alliance. Trump’s stream of invective via social media is bad and getting worse, they all agreed.
But they resolved they couldn’t consent to the U.S. president’s demands to join the fighting against Iran.
“We all want the war to end but we are not on the same page as the U.S.,” said one official briefed on the discussions. Trump wants NATO to help, but the leaders remain resistant because “most Europeans were not informed beforehand and the Gulf has nothing to do with NATO.” In Europe, conversely, the crisis is having a unifying effect: “These 10 countries have always been really close to each other but I would say they’re even closer now,” the official added.
The verdict of these governments, which include Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands, isn’t restricted to Northern Europe.
In fact, what’s remarkable about the international response to the war in Iran is how united European leaders have been in their refusal to send military assets to join the American and Israeli bombing.