From Der Spiegel's signed editorial, dated May 11, 2018, Time for Europe to join the Resistance: "U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal marks the temporary suspension of the trans-Atlantic alliance. What now?"
[...]
The most shocking realization, however, is one that affects us directly: The West as we once knew it no longer exists. Our relationship to the United States cannot currently be called a friendship and can hardly be referred to as a partnership.
President Trump has adopted a tone that ignores 70 years of trust. He wants punitive tariffs and demands obedience. It is no longer a question as to whether Germany and Europe will take part in foreign military interventions in Afghanistan or Iraq. It is now about whether trans-Atlantic cooperation on economic, foreign and security policy even exists anymore. The answer: No.
It is impossible to overstate what Trump has dismantled in the last 16 months. Europe has lost its protective power. It has lost its guarantor of joint values. And it has lost the global political influence that it was only able to exert because the U.S. stood by its side.
[...]At least the last sentence I quoted is honest but I'm not hearing honesty in the general complaint. I am hearing pique that President Trump took the USA out of the JCPOA over objections from Western Europe and the U.K.
The day Western European leaders really want to resist the United States is the day we'll hear serious talk about leaving NATO. Until then America is just too useful for the Europeans to make efforts to be their own guarantors.
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