Perhaps also the other allies of the United States should be discussed here than just the Europeans.
And one obvious ally would be Israel.
This is the only truly working alliance that the US has now. It is a very peculiar relationship, but even if the US and Israel are fighting together a war against Iran, the relationship is showing obvious underlying problems.
One thing that shouldn’t be underestimated as a “Canary in the coal mine” -event is the resignation of the US National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent. Kent put it short in his resignation letter:
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
(The resignation letter here)
Comments (then hastily refuted) by Marco Rubio showed that this was true: Bibi Netanyahu did finally get Trump to go for the regime change war in Iran, perhaps because of Trump’s success in Venezuela and the regime seemed to be fragile. This was something that all US Presidents before him had simply rejected. The war with Iran already had been muddled with the limited strike the US had done against Iranian nuclear sites last year.
The real issue here is that Kent, an ardent MAGA loyalist, did away with the taboo status of the question that is very crucial: Are American and Israeli objectives always aligned?
Even to talk publicly about the Israeli lobby had been a taboo and hence only someone like Mearsheimer along with a few others had talked about this alignment question. The accusations that Kent (and everybody else that dares to touch this subject) to be antisemites simply doesn’t fly anymore.
Now when Trump didn’t before and hasn’t afterwards been able to tell the American just what this war is about and how it will be won and be ended, the differences in the objectives here is evident.
This war benefits Netanyahu’s strategy of “mowing the lawn” in Israel’s perpetual war against it’s muslim neighbors. How this helps the US is another issue. The Gulf States have been also US allies, and this war was the last thing they wanted. And right from the start this war wasn’t popular in the US. Especially when one of the core issues of the MAGA movement was “end the forever wars” and the Trump team scared Americans by saying that the Democrats would go to a war with Iran, this hits the base just like the Epstein case, if not more.
As the Iranian regime has shown that it’s capable of killing it’s own people on an industrial scale, as it has prepared for this war for decades and likely is as obstinate as the Houthis have shown to be, this regime hardly will fall anytime soon. Iran suffered over 200 000, perhaps even 600 000 casualties in the eight year war against Iraq, hence there’s a historical example of what the regime is capable of putting up to.
An US ground contingent spread on the Persian Gulf islands or even on the Iranian coast near the Hormuz Straight will likely make ending the war even more difficult. With either a heliborne or limited naval invasion (or both), there’s a possibility of far more casualties for the US than the now official 13 deaths and three hundred wounded. Going in and out isn’t likely effective. And the Iranian drones and missiles are still coming.
(US KC-135 tankers destroyed by Iranian drones in Saudi air base)
As the US is likely not to come out of this war with flying colours, this will affect the US-Israeli alliance.
During the Cold War the role of Israel was clear: after the Six Day war success, it was an US proxy against Soviet proxies (the Arab neighbors of Israels). Israel was successful in it’s wars, something that US wartime allies (like South Vietnam) were not.
After the Cold War ended there was a genuine Israeli attempt to make peace, but this unfortunately failed and Israel got Netanyahu and the Palestinian side got Hamas (even if the PA is still around). Hence “mowing the grass” is the standard policy on the Israeli side and “Operation Al Aqsa Flood” was the response by Hamas on October 7th 2024.
The Israeli lobby and the support for Israel from the American Christian fundamentalists could hold the alliance firm only if the alliance wouldn’t have a negative effect to the economy of the US. Yet having the Hormuz Straight closed and the possibility of the Gulf energy infrastructure being damaged severely could have drastic consequences.
Hence if this alliance isn’t on the rocks as the US-NATO relations is now (with Trump showing his disdain for NATO after they didn’t join afterwards in the attack against Iran), it might heading for a similar place in the long run.