Nato leaders’ price for supporting Ukraine is their self-respect

IT WAS scripted as a lovefest with only one purpose: to prevent the most impulsive and erratic US president in history from throwing Nato’s toys out of his pram. No one provoked a tantrum. Wednesday’s (Jun 25) summit in the Hague made little pretence of discussing global strategy. It merely showcased the desperate efforts of European Nato members to increase their defence spending. It offered flattery to the US guest of honour in a fashion unprecedented even during the Cold War.

Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte set the tone with his welcome message before Donald Trump’s arrival, congratulating the president on his “decisive action” in Iran and promising that he would be “flying into another big success in the Hague”. He even expressed sympathy for the president’s public use of four-letter language.

Most powerful man on earth

National leaders who may have wondered what life was like under a Roman emperor now know from experience. As they struggle to do business with the most powerful man on earth, they are obliged to abase themselves, to pander, to profess assent when privately many dissent. No one in the room save the principal guest believed his claim that US and Israeli bombs had set back Iran “by decades”. But they kept silent, and will continue to do so, lest they provoke his wrath, so easily roused.