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Newfoundland and Labrador Opinion

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GWYNNE DYER: Is NATO needed anymore?

NATO hasn't come to the aid of the US war with Iran, likely meaning the end of the alliance, but what will come next - and is it needed?

Asked on Wednesday, April 1, if he would reconsider his decision to pull the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), President Donald Trump said, “It’s beyond reconsideration. I just think it should be automatic.”

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So that’s a definite ‘maybe’.

He’s very cross at the moment, because not one of NATO’s 31 other members has agreed to support his illegal surprise attack on Iran. He didn’t tell them he was going to do it, and Iran is totally out of the area covered by the NATO treaty, but he feels betrayed.

And he’s probably quite surprised that they are not begging him to stay.

What will happen with NATO?

Trump is a slow learner, so he is only now being confronted with the fact that the ‘North Atlantic’ aspect of the alliance actually went dead about a year ago. Canada will remain a NATO member if it dares, but other than that, it is now in practice a strictly European alliance.

This is a major shock to the system, but it is long overdue. The Soviet Union, the threat that NATO was created to deter 77 years ago, vanished 35 years ago, and the current........

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