Intellectual giants are in painfully short supply in the Trump administration, but if there was anyone who might lay claim to cerebral weight of any sort, Elbridge Colby might be one of them.  Self-styled as a China hawk, the US Under Secretary of War for Policy must privately be bemused by the changeling that has become US foreign policy, one now latched onto, yet again, the issues of the Middle East and the shaking tail that is Israel. 

President Donald Trump, the man who promised to end wars and terminate the state of permanent conflict the US has found itself in for decades, is sticking to bad habits.

President Donald Trump, the man who promised to end wars and terminate the state of permanent conflict the US has found itself in for decades, is sticking to bad habits.

These bad habits have not been appreciated by various allies, notably members of NATO.  Spain, France and Italy have shown varying degrees of icy reserve to the use of their bases and airspace by US forces in striking Iran.  The UK has been less firm on the issue, though its unpopular Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is adamant that no troops will be committed to the operation.  These countries have also given the cold shoulder to deploying troops in any forceable operation to open the Strait of Hormuz. 

Of all the allies, Spain has proven a model objector, arguing that the pre-emptive war launched by Israel and the US on February 28 was and remains illegal.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has stated at length, both in writing and in the press, that the assault was a chilling reminder about what happened in February 2003, when US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, spun that now all too familiar lie before the UN Security Council that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but was bound to use them, directly or through some unscrupulous proxy. 

“Today we face a similar situation,” wrote Sánchez in The Economist, “and my government’s position is the same as that........

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