Blood on their hands: NATO chief’s confession proves Europe enabled US-Israeli war against Iran
By Alireza Ahmadzadeh
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has provided the clearest public account to date of how European territory and military infrastructure enabled the unprovoked and illegal US war of aggression against Iran since February, providing a damning confession of their complicity in the massacre of Iranian civilians – from Tehran to Minab and beyond.
Speaking at a Wednesday event hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs alongside US Ambassador to NATO Matthew G. Whitaker, Rutte laid bare the mechanical reality of the so-called “Operation Epic Fury,” the US name for its brutal military aggression against Iran.
"NATO, its Allies, is one big platform of power projection," Rutte stated, revealing that 5,000 sorties had been launched from European bases in support of the war between February 28 and mid-April alone.
"You could argue it would have been impossible to do Epic Fury without having Europe as a power projection platform for the United States."
While Rutte framed this as a triumph of transatlantic alliance, to the victims of American state terrorism, it reads as a confession of accessory to war crimes.
Rutte’s admission that the US war machine could not function without European soil completely shatters the carefully cultivated illusion of European neutrality in the war.
It places the blood of Iranian children squarely on the hands of NATO member states.
When the US Navy launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that obliterated the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, slaughtering hundreds of civilians, including at least 160 young girls and boys, the targeting data, satellite relays, and command-and-control logistics were heavily reliant on NATO’s European infrastructure.
Similarly, when US aircraft dropped missiles that dispersed clouds of lethal tungsten pellets over a sports complex and residential area in the city of Lamerd, killing over 20 civilian men and women, those bombers did not operate in a vacuum.
They were refueled by tankers staged at European military bases, guided by AWACS surveillance planes operating out of NATO airspace, and coordinated through military hubs like Ramstein Air Base in Germany and Aviano in Italy.
Without the "5,000 sorties" and the logistical backbone of the European continent that Rutte so proudly cited, the US military would have lacked the operational endurance to sustain the relentless bombardment of Iranian civilian and military infrastructure. Europe is not a passive observer but an active launchpad for American terror.
The charade of European ‘neutrality’
This blatant reality exposes the profound hypocrisy of several European countries. Throughout the seven-month war, countries such as Britain, France, Italy and Germany have engaged in performative diplomatic posturing. They have issued hollow statements calling for "de-escalation" and "restraint.”
Yet, as Rutte’s testimony now fully confirms, this anti-war posturing is a cynical charade designed to placate domestic anti-war sentiment. Behind closed doors, European airspace remains wide open to the US Air Force, and sovereign NATO bases continue to serve as the vital nervous system for Operation Epic Fury.
Britain provides one of the clearest examples. On March 1, the British government authorized the United States to use British military bases for what London described as “specific and limited defensive” operations against Iranian missile facilities.
British parliamentary records identify RAF Fairford in England and Diego Garcia, a British Overseas Territory, as facilities covered by the arrangement.
London maintained that the measures were defensive and legally justified as self-defense. However, the "defensive" label is nothing more than a legalistic fig leaf engineered to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and quell public outrage.
There is nothing "defensive" about hosting the logistical and command infrastructure for an unprovoked and preemptive war of aggression. Diego Garcia has long served as a critical forward operating hub for heavy US bombers, while RAF Fairford is a primary staging ground for aerial refueling and intelligence operations.
When the sorties launching from or coordinating through these bases result in the indiscriminate slaughter of schoolchildren in Minab, the semantic distinction between "defensive support" and "offensive execution" collapses entirely. The missiles are American, but the launchpad, the satellite relays, and the sovereign authorization are British.
Italy presents a more complicated, yet equally cynical, picture. Rutte previously stated that about 500 US aircraft had taken off from American bases in Italy in support of the war against Iran. Faced with domestic backlash, the Italian government rejected the characterization that its territory had been used for the attacks, insisting that Rome had authorized only technical, logistical, "non-kinetic" activities.
NATO subsequently issued a backpedaling statement, claiming Rutte was merely referring to existing bilateral agreements involving basing and overflight arrangements.
The Italian case perfectly demonstrates both the reality of US operational activity from European territory and the political desperation with which European leaders attempt to sanitize it.
The distinction between "kinetic" and "non-kinetic" support is an absurdity in modern aerial warfare. Refueling, arming, and coordinating hundreds of combat sorties is the lifeblood of a military campaign. NATO’s bureaucratic instinct to shield member states by redefining vital logistical support as mere "basing agreements" exposes how the military alliance’s institutional machinery is actively utilized to launder war crimes.
Likewise, Germany’s Ramstein Air Base continues to function as a critical command-and-control node and drone relay for US military adventures, while French logistical and aerial assets remain deeply intertwined with alliance deployment structures.
By providing the logistical staging grounds for the aggressors, these governments are in direct violation of international law, which dictates that states facilitating a war of aggression and its ensuing war crimes bear legal and moral culpability.
Not all European states bowed to this moral bankruptcy, proving that complicity is a political choice, not a structural inevitability. Spain explicitly rejected the use of its jointly operated bases at Rota and Morón for the war on Iran, stating it would not authorize such use outside the relevant treaty and UN Charter framework.
Madrid’s defiance highlights that countries like Britain and Italy possessed the sovereign agency to say no, but deliberately chose to become cogs in the American war machine.
Strategic vassalage and moral bankruptcy
Rutte’s comments also highlight a grim reality regarding Europe’s so-called "strategic autonomy." Far from being an independent geopolitical pole, Europe has been reduced to what the NATO chief himself described as a mere "platform" for American hegemony.
The continent's leadership has willingly surrendered its sovereignty, allowing Washington to drag it into a devastating, illegal war in West Asia that has triggered global economic shockwaves, spiked energy prices, and destabilized international security.
European citizens are forced to bear the economic fallout of a war they overwhelmingly oppose, fought to secure the regional dominance of the US and its Zionist proxy.
When the history of this war against Iran is written, the mass graves in Minab and the shattered homes in Lamerd will not just be attributed to the American pilots who pulled the triggers or the politicians who cheered.
They will be attributed to the European leaders who turned their continent into an indispensable launchpad for slaughter, hiding their complicity behind the hollow rhetoric of "defensive operations."
Alireza Ahmadzadeh is a Tehran-based international affairs analyst and PhD researcher.
(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)
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