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On paper, Operation Epic Fury is hewing pretty closely to President Donald Trump‘s stated plan from the onset of the U.S. invasion of Iran. As reiterated during the president’s prime-time White House address during the middle of the incursion’s fifth week, the United States has come close to completing two of its goals, the complete obliteration of the Iranian Navy and ballistic missile capabilities, while progressing toward its second pair of objectives: defanging Iran’s ability to fund its terrorist proxies and permanently destroying the regime’s nuclear weapons capabilities. Trump, who initially said the operation would likely take around five weeks, pledged to “hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” telegraphing a mid-to-late April exit plan that would keep the total war time a matter of weeks, not months.
In other words: promises made, promises kept.
IRAN WAR’S EFFECT ON INTEREST RATES REMAIN A LOOMING UNKNOWN
But that hasn’t stopped global equities, oil markets, precious metals, and all of Europe from responding in a panic. And that’s not because Trump said anything novel. In fact, much of his speech simply reiterated obvious points the White House has tried to publicize over the past week or so, simply summarizing what we have accomplished and why Iran was indeed such an imminent threat.
Rather, the global apoplexy is a result of what Trump did not say, namely, his scant mention of the Strait of Hormuz.
Although about a fifth of global oil trade traverses through the waterway, a defiant Trump simply insisted that the U.S., which became a net oil exporter for the first time since 1949 during his first term, “imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future.”
“We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it,” said Trump of the strait, which Iran has terrorized into a relative standstill. “We’ve beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically and in every other way. And the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage.”
Trump is technically correct. This statement is also probably a bit of a bluff, as even though America’s domestic production and conveniently timed raid of Venezuela’s oil have buffered us from the global drought of supply, we’re not immune to the global uptick in prices influenced by the shortage. The not-so-underlying message here is that if our ostensible European allies, especially the ones legally committed to our friendship via NATO, cannot fight for their friends, they’ll be left to fight for themselves all on their own.
Recall that Trump began the year by unilaterally ridding the world of dictator Nicolas Maduro, leaving in place an American puppet viceroy to rule a suddenly hospitable Venezuela overnight. After accomplishing a feat so globally significant in the fight against Russia and China’s Axis of Evil, Trump then pivoted toward the sparsely populated ice sheet of Greenland.
The pivot baffled Trump’s domestic backers and infuriated our international allies. This country with a population smaller than that of the Isle of Man and a GDP on par with Eswatini suddenly became the main character of world news as Trump insisted the U.S.’s newest priority would be “acquiring” Greenland.
NATO allies that did not immediately devolve into hysterics pointed out that the U.S. had already inked a deal with Denmark in 1951, allowing a military presence on the island in perpetuity. This, in turn, was just a piece of the broader NATO framework that allowed the U.S. the widespread use of other countries’ military bases. NATO’s legal framework stops short of giving the U.S. unfettered access to Europe’s bases, but that access, along with intelligence sharing, has delivered the strategic value Europe has been unwilling or unable to provide through direct defense spending. In fact, access to Europe’s bases has been so valuable to the U.S. that even at the peak of the Greenland controversy, a NATO diplomat insisted that “using bases as bargaining chips for leverage … would result in mutual damage” — severe enough that it ought not be done.
Ultimately, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, perhaps Trump’s closest European ally, helped save the day, brokering the “framework of a future deal” that would balance Greenland’s sovereignty while codifying further American defense and drilling rights on the island. Trump’s odd Greenland obsession looked slated to simmer down into one of the less flattering footnotes of his presidency, but ultimately one that averted any real crisis.
That is, until two months later, when Europe more or less vindicated Trump’s insistence that “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.” I suppose we could expect the Europeans to be useless in helping the U.S. and Israel fight Iran. But they’ve shocked in their decision to actively hamper the defense that has been aided by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and our other Gulf allies.
Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, Spain has blocked the U.S. not just from its jointly operated Morón Air Base and Naval Station Rota, bases that are permanently manned and funded by the U.S., but also from Spanish airspace. Italy has blocked American landing rights at Naval Air Station Sigonella, which, again, we jointly operate with Italy. France has blocked its airspace to our aircraft carrying military supplies for the operation, and only in the last two weeks has the United Kingdom allowed us to use its bases to target Iranian missile sites.
With friends like these, who needs NATO?
It’s worth pointing out that even before the Iran assault, Western Europe was already failing at its legally and unambiguously binding obligation to spend a minimum of 2% of each country’s GDP on defense spending. Although NATO claims that all 32 member states finally hit the benchmark last year, there’s ample reason to be suspicious. Spain, which only spent 1.28% of its GDP on defense in 2024, proudly derided NATO’s insistence that nations aim to escalate to a 3% target in the coming years, claiming that Spain’s ultimate goal would only be a measly 2.1% of GDP. Italy had not spent more than 1.7% of its GDP on defense this century through 2024, leaving a 2% accomplishment in 2025 a tad ambitious. France and the U.K. have reliably fulfilled the 2% requirement, but they pale in comparison to the efforts of the much smaller Poland and Lithuania, which spend at least 4% of their GDP on defense.
TRUMP SAYS IRAN WAR TO CONTINUE FOR UP TO THREE WEEKS
If anyone understands the self-inflicted wound here, it’s Rutte, who is reportedly sprinting stateside to meet with Trump and try to save the alliance.
For Trump’s own political survival, the U.S. is unlikely to let Iran maintain its stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz, and ultimately, the new Gulf alliance may prove the friends we need to finish the job in and around Iran. But he has given Europe a test that it is choosing to fail. If NATO suffers as a consequence, it would and should be regarded as a suicide by the Europeans, not an attack by Trump.
