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Comment by ElProlactin | Hacker News Reader

> ...but at what point does Article 5 get invoked

Probably not as likely as you think.

First, these things intentionally fall short of clear "armed attacks" and are designed around plausible deniability.

Second, Europe/NATO are not looking for a fight. Russia is in a bad spot right now, but NATO is not in a great spot for a kinetic conflict with Russia either.

Lastly, I don't think NATO countries are eager to test America's willingness to defend Europe under the Trump administration because they already know the likely answer when they call for help.

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The last one is the strongest one. Our prior allies know they just can't count on us at all, when it comes to Russia, especially.

It is a sad state of affairs.

On the flip side, when your allies know they can count on you you stuff like them picking stupid fights because they know you'll back them up. Israel dragging us further into Iran during the first ~third of the conflict when the US was trying to find a clean place to stop the escalation is a pretty good example of that.

"the US" is stretching it hard when it comes to the Iran war. In the US government under Trump, there are a lot of different interests...

- you got Kushner and his ilk who basically wants to flatten Gaza to turn it into a real estate hotspot to make untold amounts of money

- you got the Evangelical nutcases who legitimately believe that this mess is a holy war and will bring back Jesus [1]

- you got your usual old-school falcons, MIC lobbyists etc. that stand to make a lot of money and/or want this war to happen for ideological reasons

- you got a ton of isolationists who want "an end to the US wars that cost taypayer money"

- you gotTrump himself who openly admires strongmen and (wannabe) dictators, and I think it's fair to classify Netanyahu as both.

And that is a loooot of different to incompatible interests to balance against each other.

[1] https://theconversation.com/evangelical-holy-war-why-some-ch...

Absolutely, but there were several instances where the US, regardless of how disparate the interests in it are, was more or less at the negotiating table and then Israel started blowing stuff up.

Trump doesn't want negotiations and deals with Iran. He wants to conquer it and make it a puppet state.

If he actually wanted a deal in place to limit nuclear ambitions and proliferation, he wouldn't have thrown it away in the first place.

> Israel dragging us further into Iran during the first ~third of the conflict when the US was trying to find a clean place to stop the escalation is a pretty good example of that.

This is like the guy who claims that he wanted to stop beating his wife but his brother just wouldn't let him stop.

Let's be clear: nobody forced the US to attack Iran in the first place. There is a reason no president before Trump did what Trump did: defense and intelligence officials have known for a very long time how such an attack was likely to play out and how disastrous it would be for the region, the US and the global economy.

Trump was warned by senior intelligence and defense officials and he chose to ignore their advice because he's a very stable genius who knows better than anyone else.

Israel has been trying to make the US attack Iran for decades.

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