标签： Asia

The ongoing US-Israeli military campaign against Iran has opened a deep and widening breach between the United States and its longstanding NATO allies, with multiple member states rejecting American requests for military access, basing rights, and defensive assets even as the Trump administration casts new uncertainty over its commitment to the alliance’s core mutual defense pledge.

Multiple European capitals have now publicly pushed back against Washington’s demands. Spain has barred US military aircraft bound for Iran-related operations from entering its airspace, according to official statements. Leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera also reported that Rome has denied landing access to US military aircraft en route to the Middle East at a key Sicilian base, a striking move given Italy’s right-leaning government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, traditionally aligned with US foreign policy goals.

Poland, a central European nation that has stood as one of Washington’s most reliable NATO allies since the end of the Cold War and where former President Trump retains broad popular support amid the country’s powerful right-wing populist movement, also issued a public denial on Tuesday. Warsaw rejected claims it had agreed to redeploy its Patriot air defense systems to the Middle East, confirming it turned down an informal request from the Trump administration for the assets.

While Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a leftist leader, publicly opposed the US-Israeli war from its earliest days, the scope of refusals spanning ideologically diverse governments makes clear that Washington’s diplomatic isolation on the conflict is accelerating.

Trump amplified transatlantic tensions in a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, calling out major European powers for their refusal to back the campaign. He revealed that France, which has long maintained an independent foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, has also denied US aircraft carrying military equipment to Israel permission to transit its airspace. He also publicly criticized the United Kingdom for declining to join the war effort, ending his post with a blunt warning: “The USA will remember !!!”

The combative posture has been echoed across the Trump administration. When asked about growing alliance tensions, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declined to explicitly commit to NATO’s Article 5, the foundational clause that states an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all, instead deferring any judgment on the commitment to Trump.

Hegseth defended the US-led campaign against Iran, arguing the operation was launched “on behalf of the free world” and allies whose missile capabilities faced threats from Tehran. “When we ask for additional assistance or simple access, basing and overflight, we get questions or roadblocks or hesitations,” he told reporters.

But that framing stands in stark contrast to how NATO allies view the conflict, according to Ian Lesser, vice president of the German Marshall Fund in the United States, who spoke to Middle East Eye. “There is a basic concern that Europe is being asked to contribute to and approve of operations they had no role in shaping and a strategy they had no role in shaping,” Lesser explained.

“This war is both unpopular among the public and, in some cases, the elite, and it could take a direction that European allies can’t shape. That’s not a good recipe for cooperation,” he added.

Tehran has responded to the US-Israeli offensive with a large-scale retaliatory campaign, launching thousands of missiles and drones targeting Israel and Arab Gulf states. While Iranian strikes on Gulf territory have specifically targeted US military bases with precision, Tehran has also attacked civilian infrastructure and energy facilities in the region in retaliation for similar Israeli strikes on Iranian targets.

Washington has pushed Gulf Arab states to join the offensive against Iran, and Middle East Eye was first to report that the US has secured access to King Fahd Air Base in western Saudi Arabia after Iranian drone and missile strikes damaged facilities at US bases closer to the Gulf. To bolster its Iran deployment, the Trump administration has also reallocated critical military resources, including marines and air defense systems, away from East Asia.

For NATO allies, the conflict has already carried a steep economic cost. After Iran seized effective control of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint, and implemented a new system for approving safe passage for vessels, global oil and gas prices have surged, hitting European economies particularly hard. Roughly 20 percent of the world’s total energy supplies pass through the strait, and NATO countries, which have already cut most imports of Russian energy following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, are facing unprecedented energy market volatility as a result.

Iran’s consolidation of control over the strait has emerged as a major strategic embarrassment for the Trump administration, which has built its global superpower legitimacy on two core foundations: unwavering commitment to the NATO alliance, and guaranteed security for global energy flows out of the Persian Gulf. Tehran is now working to establish an alternative transit framework that prioritizes non-Western aligned vessels, including ships flagged by neutral countries like Pakistan and cargo carrying energy priced in Chinese renminbi instead of the US dollar, a direct challenge to Washington’s global financial and energy dominance.

Trump has dramatically shifted his public posture on the crisis in recent days, moving from threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s entire energy grid if Tehran refused to surrender control of the strait, to stepping back and shifting responsibility to US allies. In a social media post directed at Washington’s uncooperative allies including the UK on Tuesday, Trump wrote: “Just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”

Analysts warn Trump’s threat to cede control of the strait to Iran is self-defeating if he eventually seeks NATO support to reimpose Western oversight of the waterway. If Tehran retains de facto control over the strait, Lesser said European allies will be forced to reconsider their entire regional security framework, and have little incentive to back the US war effort in the meantime.

“Why would Nato countries make themselves more exposed by assisting the US war on Iran? They can probably imagine this going in a direction that allows certain traffic through Hormuz, but not all,” Lesser said, adding that European capitals also do not want to be publicly associated with a war that is deeply unpopular at home.

In a sign that Tehran is actively encouraging NATO allies to break with Washington, Iran has publicly signaled it will reward countries that refuse to back the US campaign. The Iranian embassy in Spain said Thursday that Tehran would accommodate any request from Madrid for Spanish-flagged vessels to receive guaranteed safe passage through the strait. While Spain’s commercial shipping fleet is relatively small, the gesture carries clear symbolic weight for transatlantic relations.

WASHINGTON — Five weeks into active hostilities between the United States and Iran, the Biden administration (correction: current Trump administration) has moved to frame skyrocketing national gasoline prices as a temporary side effect of the conflict, while top defense officials have refused to take any military option — including a full ground deployment of U.S. troops — off the table.

In his first public briefing at the Pentagon since mid-March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Tuesday that the timeline for concluding combat operations and achieving U.S. war aims rests solely with President Donald Trump, warning that the coming days will prove decisive for the conflict. He also confirmed that diplomatic negotiations between the two nations remain active, and suggested the talks have gained momentum in recent days.

The prolonged conflict has already sent shockwaves through both global and domestic U.S. economies, with new data from automotive group AAA showing the national average price for regular gasoline in the U.S. has crossed the $4 per gallon threshold for the first time in four years. Photographic documentation from a Providence, Rhode Island gas station taken March 31, 2026 shows regular fuel priced at $3.89 per gallon, just shy of the national benchmark.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against growing public frustration over fuel costs in an official statement, arguing that once the administration’s Operation Epic Fury concludes, gas prices will fall sharply back to the multi-year lows U.S. drivers saw before the current market disruption. She added that President Trump remains dedicated to expanding American energy production to achieve long-term energy dominance, cut household costs, and put more disposable income back into the budgets of working American families.

Within hours of the White House’s statement, Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf seized on the price surge to criticize U.S. policy, sharing a link to a U.S. news report on soaring gas prices to the social platform X with the caption: “Sad, but this is what happens when your leaders put others ahead of hard-working and ordinary Americans.”

The primary driver of the global energy price spike is Iran’s ongoing blockade of commercial and military vessels from the U.S. and its allies at the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint that carries a large share of the world’s petroleum and liquefied natural gas exports. As of 12:45 p.m. Eastern Time Tuesday, Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil pricing, was trading at just over $119 per barrel. Open source data from MarineTraffic and United Nations estimates show between 2,000 and 3,000 cargo vessels and oil tankers, carrying roughly 20,000 crew members, remain stranded in the Persian Gulf due to the blockade.

President Trump has claimed in recent public comments that Iran has agreed to allow a small number of third-party oil tankers to pass through the strait, first saying eight to 10 Pakistani tankers would be permitted during a cabinet meeting Thursday, then raising that number to 20 during comments Sunday. But data from the Joint Maritime Information Center contradicts those claims, showing only four large, location-transmitting tankers crossed the strait on Friday and Saturday combined.

When asked about potential ground operations, Hegseth said the administration would not foreclose any military response to Iranian aggression, but declined to share specific operational details during his public briefing. “You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do, or what you are not willing to do — to include boots on the ground,” Hegseth said. “Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are. So if we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the president of the United States and this department, or maybe we don’t have to use them at all. Maybe negotiations work.”

Trump echoed Hegseth’s comments on diplomatic progress during remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday, saying talks with Iran are ongoing both directly and indirectly, and that the discussions are “very good.” “We’re doing extremely well,” the president said. “But you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them, and then we always have to blow ‘em up.”

The president has repeatedly issued public threats to bomb Iran’s critical energy infrastructure, and has set a self-imposed deadline of April 6 for Iran to meet all U.S. demands before launching new strikes. On Monday night, Trump shared video of a recent U.S. strike on an Iranian ammunition depot in the central province of Isfahan to his Truth Social platform. But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei denied any diplomatic talks are taking place with the U.S., according to Iranian state news outlet Tasmin News Agency.

U.S. military buildup in the region continues: U.S. Central Command confirmed that up to 3,500 U.S. Marines and sailors arrived in the Persian Gulf region Saturday, bringing total U.S. troop levels in the area to roughly 50,000 — an increase of 10,000 from the standard peacetime deployment of 40,000. Ghalibaf warned Sunday that any U.S. ground offensive into Iran would be met with “severe punishment,” per Iranian state media. For context, the 2003 U.S. ground invasion of Iraq saw more than 300,000 American troops deployed to the region, according to historical archives from the Council on Foreign Relations.

In his first press briefing held on Tuesday, more than a month after the United States and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made a striking admission that undermines the White House’s repeated claims of an “imminent threat” from Tehran: Iran’s ballistic missiles do not have the range to strike the US mainland.

Hegseth explained that Washington’s military commitment in the region is focused on protecting US regional assets and its Middle Eastern allies from Iran’s capabilities, and it is now time for European allies to pull their weight in the conflict. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, he argued, “These are missiles that don’t even range the United States of America. They range allies and others. And yet, when asked for additional assistance… we get questions or roadblocks or hesitations.” He added that President Donald Trump has emphasized that alliances lose meaning when member states refuse to stand together when their support is needed.

Hegseth’s comments came in direct support of a post Trump published earlier that day on his Truth Social platform, where the president publicly demanded the United Kingdom “build up some courage, go to the Strait [of Hormuz], and just TAKE IT”, adding that US allies “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself.”

Defending the administration’s military strategy, Hegseth asserted that since the US-Israeli offensive began on February 28, Washington has dictated the terms of engagement, leaving Iran unable to mount an effective military response to the campaign. This claim, however, leaves a critical question unanswered: if the US holds the clear upper hand in the conflict, why is Trump pushing NATO allies to contribute more support to the operation?

A key domestic pressure shaping the administration’s push for allied support comes from surging US energy prices. On Tuesday, the national average price of gasoline in the US spiked above $4 per gallon, piling additional financial strain on American households that lack accessible alternative transportation options. Lowering gas prices was a central campaign promise for Trump, who has repeatedly criticized his predecessor Joe Biden for high energy costs during his term.

Currently, Iran is blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil chokepoint, to oil tankers linked to the US and Israel, banking on the resulting energy price shock to erode domestic support for the conflict in the US and weaken Washington’s resolve. Hegseth issued a blunt warning to Tehran on Tuesday: “Open it for business, or we have options, and we certainly do.” He declined to elaborate on what those potential options might be, noting that “Don’t tell your enemy what you’re willing to do or not do, and don’t tell your enemy when you’re willing to stop.”

When questioned about the “ongoing negotiations” Trump has referenced that Iranian officials have repeatedly denied, Hegseth claimed that Iran’s original ruling regime has been entirely destroyed, a second iteration is largely defunct, and the current third governing body has been far more open to talks. This shift, he claimed, is purely a result of overwhelming US military pressure. He also told reporters that the past 24 hours had seen the lowest volume of Iranian missile and drone launches, arguing that US airstrikes “are damaging the morale of the Iranian military, leading to widespread desertions, key personnel shortages, and causing frustrations amongst senior leaders”.

That assessment directly contradicts the findings of independent security experts tracking Iranian military activity. These analysts confirm that Iran has maintained a steady rate of drone and missile strikes consistent with the pace recorded over the past 20 days, and that launch volumes have actually increased in recent days compared to early March. Experts also note that Iranian strikes have grown more precise in target selection in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a new warning, stating that it will target 18 US-based corporations operating in the Middle East, labeling these entities as “institutions involved in terrorist activities” tied to Washington’s military campaign.

This report was published by Middle East Eye, a media outlet that provides independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.

In a landmark ruling that has split opinions on clean energy development and endangered species protection, a Nevada-based federal judge has rejected a legal challenge from environmental groups seeking to halt construction of the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium/Boron Project, a mine that conservationists warn threatens the survival of the only existing population of rare Tiehm’s buckwheat wildflower.

The 11-square-mile Rhyolite Ridge development, located in Esmeralda County between Reno and Las Vegas, is led by Australian mining firm Ioneer. The site hosts the world’s largest known deposit of lithium and boron outside of Turkey, positioning it as a key component of U.S. plans to build a domestic supply chain for critical minerals. The project would be only the third lithium mine in Nevada and one of the rare operations that processes extracted minerals on-site, a capability that significantly reduces reliance on overseas processing. Lithium is a non-substitutable core input for electric vehicle (EV) batteries, making the project a high-priority asset for the United States’ clean energy transition.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Cristina Silva, a nominee of the Biden administration, ruled that the federal government followed proper procedure in approving the development and conducted a rigorous, legally sufficient assessment of the project’s impact on the rare wildflower. Tiehm’s buckwheat grows exclusively across just 10 acres within the mine’s project boundary. The judge found Ioneer’s proposed mitigation measures—including fenced protection for the wildflower’s habitat and dedicated buffer zones separating mining activity from the plant’s range—meet the standards required under the Endangered Species Act. Silva noted that only 4.9% of the species’ designated 1.4-square-mile critical habitat would be lost to project development.

Despite the ruling, the Center for Biological Diversity, the lead conservation group behind the lawsuit, has pledged to continue its fight. The organization secured federal endangered species status for Tiehm’s buckwheat in 2022, and leaders confirm they are actively preparing an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, argues the case carries far-reaching implications for all protected species and habitats across the country under the Endangered Species Act.

Donnelly warned that erosion of protections for this small wildflower sets a dangerous precedent for future rollbacks of endangered species safeguards. Standing just a few inches tall, Tiehm’s buckwheat is found only in the Silver Peak Range, where its 10-acre range is roughly the size of seven American football fields. Every spring, the plant blooms with bright yellow pom-pom-shaped flowers that form the center of a unique, localized pollinator ecosystem. Donnelly says incremental habitat losses have already brought the species to the brink, and mine development would deliver a fatal “death blow,” increasing extinction risk and damaging regional biodiversity. He also cast doubt on the effectiveness of Ioneer’s proposed fencing, arguing the measure cannot fully protect the wildflower from mining-related disruption.

For the project’s backers, the ruling represents a critical legal victory that paves the way for advancing a development they say will deliver wide-ranging economic and national security benefits. Rowe, Ioneer’s Managing Director, says the $2 billion mine would operate for more than 77 years and produce enough lithium carbonate annually to supply roughly 400,000 electric vehicles. Alongside lithium, the mine will produce boric acid, a material used in pest control, flame retardants, and a range of medical and personal care products. In a formal statement, Ioneer Vice President of Corporate Development and External Affairs Chad Yeftich emphasized the project will create hundreds of domestic manufacturing jobs, cut U.S. dependence on foreign mineral imports and processing, and establish a reliable domestic supply of two strategically critical minerals.

The project has drawn bipartisan support from recent U.S. administrations, aligned with goals to expand domestic critical mineral production. Rhyolite Ridge first received federal approval during the Biden administration as part of the president’s clean energy transition agenda, while the Trump administration also publicly backed lithium development in Nevada as a strategy to strengthen domestic critical mineral manufacturing. In January 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy finalized a nearly $1 billion loan to support the project. Ioneer still aims to break ground by the end of 2025, with commercial production on track to launch in 2029, though the firm is still seeking a new financial partner after major backer Sibanye Stillwater withdrew from the project last year, citing unfavorable financial projections. The U.S. Interior Department declined to provide comment on the recent ruling.