Describing itself as a “platform” for the US empire, NATO is supporting war on Iran and radically increased military spending. Yet the ‘left’s’ standard bearer in the NDP leadership race won’t support members calling for Canada to withdraw from NATO even as leading left politicians in Europe push to exit the alliance.
On Thursday NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated what’s been obvious since its 1949 founding. He said, “NATO is a platform for the United States to project power on the world stage.” The head of NATO has put to rest the absurd notion that it’s simply a “defensive” alliance, which some even claim would protect Canada from Donald Trump’s annexation threats. Why would a “platform” for a rogue nation that’s bombed eight countries over the past year protect the target of US expansion?
In recent days Rutte has forcefully endorsed the US/Israeli bid to overthrow the Iranian government and possibly balkanize that country. Rutte’s comment was made in a speech about the alliance’s support for the US/Israeli aggression against Iran. The Secretary General stated, “Because this whole operation now, this whole campaign in Iran, needs these basic requests to be positively engaged with by NATO allies as they are doing — making use of key assets here in Europe. So the fact that we stick together, the United States and Europe and Canada, is crucial also for the success of this American-Israeli campaign.”
Instead of protecting us, NATO is much more likely to drag Canada further into this war. In a CBC story on the possibility of Canada formally joining the US/Israeli aggression, former assistant secretary general for defence investment at NATO, Wendy Gilmour, said if territory of the alliance were hit “then Canada would obviously be part of that response whether it’s direct military engagement or simply our support for NATO institutions and the NATO enterprise as it evolves.”
NATO planners have long viewed dominating Iran and the region as an alliance objective. In 1951 then foreign affairs minister Lester Pearson responded to Egypt abrogating a treaty granting Britain a base in the country and elected Iranian president Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalizing British Petroleum’s operations by telling Parliament, “The Middle East is strategically far too important to the defence of the North Atlantic area to allow it to become a power vacuum or to pass into unfriendly hands.” In an earlier statement on NATO and the Suez Canal Pearson said, “The defence of the Middle East is vital to the successful defence of Europe and north Atlantic area.”
NATO has repeatedly drawn the Canadian military into the region. Canada’s peacekeeping mission to Egypt in 1956 was designed to overcome division in the alliance between the UK/France and US while NATO provided a supportive role during the 1991 Iraq war, which Canada joined. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Canada didn’t officially endorse, Canada’s ambassador to NATO pressed Ottawa to take charge of a multi-national maritime interdiction efforts off the coast of Iraq. As a result, Ottawa had a legal opinion suggesting that it was technically at war with Iraq.
Alongside NATO wars in Libya and Afghanistan, Canada has been part of NATO Mission Iraq, an advisory and training effort in that country, since 2018. A Canadian base in Kuwait with two hundred or so troops has facilitated operations in the region. After days of questioning, the government finally admitted on Thursday that 200 Canadian troops are currently stationed in the region.
At the same time as its serves as a US “platform” to draw Canada into further violence, NATO boosts pressure on Canada to spend on war. On Thursday Politico reported on the US envoy to NATO’s speech to an Ottawa conference on reaching the Trump imposed target of 5% of GDP on the military:
“DONALD TRUMP’s envoy to NATO says the ‘project’ to get the alliance to boost defense spending to 5 percent of GDP is just the first step. Member countries need to ramp up their defense manufacturing capacity to meet global threats from Russia to China to Iran, envoy MATTHEW G. WHITAKER told a two-day security and defense confab in Ottawa on Wednesday. ‘We’re just going to spur industry to finally respond,’ Whitaker told the Conference of Defence Associations Institute confab ‘The Road to 5 Percent,’ which is looking at Canada’s plans to meet the new NATO target of 5 percent of GDP by 2035.
“Getting the memo: Canada has released a defense industrial strategy that aims to turbocharge manufacturing and production along the lines that Whitaker was advocating. ‘If I come back to Ottawa next year and I’m still singing this same song, I think we’ve really not succeeded,’ Whitaker said.”
Through NATO the Trump administration has succeeded in pressing Canada to spend wild sums on a military designed to assist US global power projection.
In response to Rutte’s statement yesterday, British MP and co-founder of Your Party Zarah Sultana posted, “Can NATO be ‘reformed from within’? No. Even Mark Rutte openly admits that it’s an imperialist war machine. We must leave NATO immediately. No ifs, no buts.”
Days earlier Podemos Spanish MEP Irene Montero, who was a government minister between 2020 and 2023, called for her country to leave NATO in response to the US using bases in her country to attack Iran. Similarly,at the start of the year Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise party launched a campaign to withdraw from NATO.
At an event in Ottawa Thursday night leading anti-war activist Tamara Lorincz asked leadership candidate Avi Lewis if he’ll support NDP members promoting a resolution to the upcoming convention calling for Canada to withdraw from NATO. He refused to respond.
The platform for my and Bianca Mugyenyi’s campaigns to lead the NDP calls for Canada to withdraw from NATO. But the NDP wouldn’t let us participate in the race.
Will any leadership candidate speak in support of a members’ resolution demanding Canada withdraw from the warmongering NATO alliance?
Please email Lewis to request his support of NDP members seeking to have the party push to withdraw from NATO.
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