Anti-war activists are pushing back against NATO’s latest saber-rattling, following remarks by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at a recent press conference, where he declared that “Iran should not have nuclear weapons” and urged Europe’s defense industry to “respond quickly” to escalating tensions in the Middle East.
Oz Karahan, President of the Union of Cypriots rebuked NATO’s narrative saying: “Iran is NOT a threat to Europe. It is NOT a threat to the world. It is a threat to US hegemony. This is not about defense nor deterrence. This NATO summit is about the US preserving a decaying unipolar world order by force.”
“Western leaders refuse to acknowledge the obvious: the real destabilizers are the NATO countries themselves, armed to the teeth, supporting a genocidal war in Palestine, invading nations left and right, and threatening regime-change operations in Iran,” added Karahan who is also spokesperson of the International League of People’s Struggle – Europe (ILPS – Europe)
Thousands of protesters swarmed the streets of The Hague yesterday as they shifted focus on the quickly escalating conflict in Iran, while calling for an end to the genocidal war in Palestine.
Azra Sayeed, ILPS Secretary General and executive director of Pakistan-based Roots for Equity, also criticized Rutte’s remarks as hypocritical: “Mark Rutte decries the possibility of Iran’s nuclear armament, while remaining silent on the thousands of nuclear warheads held by the US, France, and the UK – NATO members who have consistently used their military power to devastate sovereign nations,” she said.
“Who decides who gets to defend themselves? Who decides what counts as a threat? The countries with the most nuclear weapons and the longest record of colonial violence should not be the ones answering those questions,” added Sayeed.
Activists condemned Rutte’s remarks as a thinly veiled continuation of US foreign policy under the NATO banner as it prioritizes militarism over the real crises confronting people around the world.
Rhonda Ramiro from the Resist US-led War Movement, took aim at Rutte’s alarming call for the European defence industry to ramp up weapons production: “It’s outrageous. We’re in the middle of a global cost-of-living crisis, a housing crisis, a deepening climate emergency, and Mark Rutte has the gall to talk about expanding the defense industry at Trump’s urging.”
“Rutte is Trump’s puppet, doing everything at his bidding: from parroting US policy on Iran to pushing Europe to militarize further. Meanwhile, working people across Europe and the Global South are being crushed by austerity, war, and displacement. This is the real crisis, and it won’t be solved by building more weapons.”
