00:00But now we can bring you that interview that we promised, where our NATO correspondent, Shona Murray, had the opportunity
00:05to speak to Ivo Dalder.
00:07That's a former ambassador for NATO. And she started by asking him for his assessment on the very fragile ceasefire.
00:14Take a look.
00:15Although we've been six weeks into a war, an extraordinary bombing campaign by the United States and Israel.
00:24And I think Iran has the upper hand. I mean, that has been clear for quite a while.
00:27Well, remember, the Strait of Hormuz was open before the bombing started.
00:33Ships were going through hundreds of them a day. Now ships may be going through.
00:38We don't know how many. We don't know when. We don't know where.
00:41And in any case, the Iranians are claiming they will maintain control.
00:45The armed forces of Iran will maintain control over shipments through the straits.
00:50That is a massive change in Iran's benefit and to the detriment not only of the United States and Israel,
00:57but frankly, to all the Gulf states who need the access to the straits and so many others who depend
01:03on it.
01:04Well, I suppose also your heart would go out to the Iranian people who were protesting back in January,
01:09who were encouraged to continue their protests, who were promised that the Americans and the Israelis would assist them in
01:16regime change.
01:16And it actually looks like the Iranian regime has an even more ironclad control.
01:23Yeah, I think if this war ends like it does now, not just a two-week ceasefire by longer,
01:31we can say that none of the objectives, with perhaps the exception of the degree to which Iran still has
01:38a missile capability,
01:40that none of the objectives that were set out at the beginning of this campaign have been met.
01:44So, when you look at it all, you say, why did we go to war?
01:49And if this is the result, you can't but conclude that this was a strategic blunder of historic proportion.
01:56The other question is the damage that has been done to NATO.
01:59I mean, you mentioned earlier there that allies have said this is not our war.
02:04NATO is a defensive organization.
02:05You know, they were pretty clear cut about that.
02:08Donald Trump is threatening to leave NATO, is humiliating NATO.
02:11It's a paper tiger.
02:13What is the impact of this?
02:15Well, I mean, clearly what's happened over the last six weeks has been extraordinarily damaging to NATO,
02:22coming on top of the extraordinarily damaging episode of regreens.
02:26And I think the three months that have just passed, we will look back at it as the worst crisis
02:34that NATO has had in 77 years.
02:36It will end up with all European countries doubting that the United States, or at least a United States led
02:44by Donald Trump,
02:45can still be counted upon as a reliable ally when it comes to Article 5 or the collective defense of
02:50their territory.
02:52I know that Vladimir Putin is really, you know, can't believe his luck with this war in Iran.
02:57I mean, Donald Trump removed some of the sanctions on oil and so on.
03:01But if, let's say, he were to maybe test Article 5, maybe going into Estonia or one of those places,
03:08I mean, do you think that he might be a little bit more inclined to do that now, seeing the
03:11disarray within the alliance?
03:14Oh, absolutely.
03:14I think we are living in an extraordinarily dangerous period of time.
03:19We see a divided NATO, which has been the goal of first the Soviet Union and then Russia for the
03:24better part of the 80 years.
03:25A NATO that is truly at loggerheads, a NATO in which the President of the United States says,
03:31I'm not going to defend you, don't count on me, as he put it, or bye-bye, as he said
03:36at his press conference on Monday.
03:40It's a good time to test NATO if you are sitting in Moscow.
03:44By the way, it's a good time to test what you could get away with in Taiwan if you're sitting
03:48in Beijing,
03:49because much of the U.S. military capability has been moved to the Gulf,
03:54and indeed much of the U.S. military capability has been expanded on this war,
04:00which turned out to be a strategic blunder of historic proportion.
04:04So we're living in a world where the possibility of major adversaries taking advantage of European weakness
04:13and American self-inflicted wounds is larger now than any time in my lifetime,
04:19and frankly, probably any time in anybody's lifetime.
04:21Final question, Ivo, because you're a dual national, you're born in The Hague,
04:25but I want to ask you a little bit about Mark Rutte's modus operandi when it comes to Donald Trump,
04:31because some people have found that a bit grating over the last few months,
04:34that he hasn't been firm enough with Donald Trump.
04:37We saw in The Hague him referring to Trump as daddy and so on.
04:40Sometimes that's a bit of a joke.
04:41But there's a feeling that maybe he just plays it up to Trump a little bit more to the detriment
04:47to the European allies.
04:49What's your own interpretation?
04:51I think the big problem that Rutte faced is on the issue of Iran.
04:55He probably went too far.
04:57He probably went too much in the direction of supporting the president,
05:02particularly since 31 of his 32 constituents believed that the war that the president of the United States had started
05:08was both unnecessary and, most importantly, illegal.
05:13And as a result, supporting the president sort of alienated him with many other countries.
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