NATO’s Rutte Praises US, Israeli Military Action Against Iran but Says Alliance Won’t Be Involved

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday praised US and Israeli military action against Iran, saying it was degrading Tehran’s ability to get its hands on nuclear and ballistic missile capability, but he said NATO itself would not be involved.

“It’s really important what the US is doing here, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability, the ballistic missile capability,” he told Germany’s ARD television in Brussels.

“There are absolutely no plans whatever for NATO to get dragged into this or being part of it, other than individual allies doing what they can to enable what the Americans are doing together with Israel,” he added.

Rutte’s comments came on the same day that US President Donald Trump said he ordered the attack on Iran to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, vowing to pursue the war for as long as necessary.

Trump claimed the threat from Iran had been imminent when he made the decision to order the strikes. The attacks have killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sunk Iranian warships, and hit more than 1,000 targets so far.

“This was our last best chance to strike … and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime,” he said at an event in the White House East Room.

Trump added that the US military campaign in Iran was going ahead of schedule, without providing details. He said the campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but could go longer.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon played down concerns on Monday that the US attack on Iran risked plunging the United States into a new, open-ended conflict in the Middle East, even as officials declined to offer a timeline and cautioned that they expected more US casualties.

In the first Pentagon briefing since the conflict began, US General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters it would take time to achieve US military objectives in Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listed those objectives in primarily military terms, saying the Pentagon sought to destroy Iran’s navy and expansive missile capabilities that could shield any covert attempts by Tehran to later build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies it wants nuclear weapons.

“To the media outlets and political left screaming ‘ENDLESS WARS’ – stop. This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” said Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army veteran who served in Iraq from 2005 to 2006 and deployed to Afghanistan in 2012.

However, Hegseth noted that Trump would not be pinned down by any timeline.

The US and Israeli attacks have triggered a massive Iranian retaliatory response but many of the most dangerous drones and missiles have been intercepted by US military forces and US allies in the region.

Still, some of the attacks succeeded in inflicting US losses. The US military said on Monday that six US service member have been killed in conflict with Iran.

Six US service members were also injured on Monday when Kuwaiti air defenses shot down their three F-15 fighter jets by mistake.

“We expect to take additional losses,” Caine told the briefing, adding the United States would work to minimize US losses but “this is major combat operations.”

Hegseth said there were no US troops on the ground but also declined to rule that possibility out.

“We are not going into the exercise of [saying] what we will or will not do,” Hegseth said. “President Trump ensures that our enemies understand we’ll go as far as we need to go to advance American interests.”

“But we’re not dumb about it. You don’t have to roll 200,000 people in there and stay 20 years,” he added.