Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder Talks Peace Negotiation & President Trump

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Want to add the voice of Evo Daldor?

I was delighted to hear that the former ambassador to NATO was joining us today.

This brings us back to the Obama administration now.

Senior fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center.

Mr. Ambassador, welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio.

I'm deeply curious to hear your thoughts today

as the president drops this additional 10 days on the ultimatum.

Do you think this is an opportunity to let talks breathe

or to actually prompt them to begin?

Yes, and yes, also on putting more escalation options into the hopper.

The problem here seems to be that the president is kind of losing the thread

about what it is that we're trying to achieve here.

Why did we go to war in the first place?

All the focuses now on opening up the straight of her moves.

Of course, the straight of her moves was open on February 28th when the bombing started.

It was a consequence of the bombing.

It was a foreseeable consequence of the bombing.

But somehow the president and his advisors didn't do the planning

and didn't take into account the need to ensure that the straight was going to be open.

So we're in a new ballgame and we're trying to figure out a way.

The president is trying to figure out a way to get out of it.

And it is through some negotiated solution

because other than occupying Iran and taking over the government

and having a government that is more conducive to American persuasion,

it's got to be a deal.

Some deal has to be struck in which Iran agrees

to no longer threaten shipping through the straight.

And right now the table seems to be turned to some extent

where Iran holds to use the president's favorite phrase, the cards.

Iran is the one that is keeping the straight closed.

It is opening it up for those who are willing to pay it,

sufficient amount of money or its friends,

but it's keeping the straight close to those it doesn't like.

And the president is running out of options to figure out how to do this militarily.

If threatening, in my view, in order to see if we can get a deal

that at least achieves some of the objectives that were set

when we started the bombing campaign back four weeks ago now.

Yeah, but this isn't a surprise though, right?

Ambassador isn't this in every model that the Pentagon has ever had

about a potential conflict with Iran.

The first thing they would do is close the straight.

Everyone on the energy market knew this, right?

Yeah, it's not a surprise,

but apparently it wasn't a surprise for the president of the United States

who decided to engage in a second bombing campaign.

Remember, he already did so in June of 2025,

when he said he obliterated the nuclear program.

He did so without paying attention.

He was warned about this.

I think it's reporting in the New York Times

by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

Dan Cain, who said that this is possible.

And he said, oh, I'm not worried about that.

Our military, your military, we're so good we can take care of it.

What we see here is the president,

and this happens to other presidents.

It happens to George W. Bush after Afghanistan.

It's happened before.

They become enamored with the military tool.

Our military is extraordinary.

It's the best military in the world.

They can do things that no other military can do.

But it can do everything through military force.

And we know that from Afghanistan,

we know that from Vietnam, we know it from Iraq.

And but somehow because Venezuela,

the bombing campaign against Iran and June went so well,

the president assumed that we could just change the regime

with a bit of bombing and things would be fine.

Well, turn out that as military strategists like to say,

the enemy has a vote.

And in this case, the vote was to close the strait or moose

and they didn't prepare for it.

The enemy has a vote in Iran is not Venezuela.

Ambassador, I want to ask you about NATO.

It's potential involvement or lack thereof.

This is something the president's certainly been talking about a lot.

As recently as yesterday in the Cabinet meeting,

let's listen to what Donald Trump said.

President has called NATO a paper tiger.

There he is called NATO cowards for not joining him in the strait.

NATO is talking as well, though.

We just heard from the chancellor of Germany.

Again, chancellor,

mayor is saying the US and Israel have no strategy in the war on Iran

and says German contribution in resolving the crisis

is an option, interestingly here.

As Marco Rubio urges maximum partner contributions

from G7 nations over Iran.

Distill this forest ambassador to the point where the chancellor

is compelled to speak like this publicly,

what is the conversation between the White House and our NATO allies right now?

Well, I'm not sure there's much of a conversation other than perhaps Marco Rubio

talking to his G7 counterparts in Paris.

I mean, let me make two points.

Number one, 25 years ago, the United States was attacked by Al Qaeda

and for the first and only time,

NATO at the behest of not of the United States, but if it's allies,

invoked Article 5, which is the collective defensive provision

of the North Atlantic Treaty, saying that an armed attack against one

shall be regarded as an armed attack against all.

Not only did they invoke Article 5, they deployed massive amounts,

tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan.

Our allies lost well over a thousand troops in a war.

So for the President of the United States,

to say today that NATO doesn't do anything for the United States,

that NATO is never there for us.

When, in fact, the 25 years he invokes,

was the time frame in which NATO did that,

is frankly obscene, and it is regarded by Europeans as obscene,

because they lost troops to defend the United States

and the United States' security interests.

Not because they thought it was important for their security,

but they thought it was important for America's security,

and that's what allies do.

Number two, NATO is a defensive alliance.

It responds to an armed attack on it.

There is no armed attack on NATO.

The only attack that occurred was an Israeli U.S. attack on Iran,

which many, in fact, I would say most Europeans regard

as illegal under international law,

unnecessary, given that the diplomacy was still a possibility,

and reckless in ignoring the outcome

that could have happened, and I think Chancellor Maritz is expressing that.

So, on the no circumstances to say that this was, quote,

a test for NATO, or a second that NATO is a paper tiger

is never willing to do anything,

it is, frankly, beside the point.

It's not going to work, and it's not going to lead

NATO countries to deploy the forces.

Now, if hostilities have ended,

there probably is going to be a European contribution

to keep the straight open, or even to open it.

After all, NATO-European countries have capabilities

the United States no longer has, like minesweepers,

and finally, just to point out,

NATO bases in Germany and in other countries

are being used every single day

to facilitate the ability of the United States

to conduct this work without NATO, without Europe.

The United States couldn't be doing what it's doing today.

Well, what would happen if every NATO nation

with the ship showed up when the President initially asked them

to in advance of the strikes?

Would that have made the difference?

The President says you need volume, you need scale

to reopen the straight.

If we showed up with all of our NATO allies,

would the straight be open, Ambassador?

Well, if we hadn't bombed the straight would be open,

and I think that's the fundamental point.

The straight was open.

It was closed because of the bombing.

I think if there had been consultations,

with the European nations, as indeed there was,

prior to the Iraq war, deep consultations,

although the Europe was divided, NATO was divided.

We might have come up with a strategy to say,

how do we put maximum pressure on Iran

to achieve what we want to achieve,

which is a new Iran that does not have nuclear weapons,

which, by the way, it doesn't,

and it hasn't had nuclear weapons,

in part because of negotiations,

in part because of sanctions,

in part because of pressure,

but certainly because of diplomacy,

that it reduces its ballistic missile inventory,

and that it cuts its support for proxies.

We could have had a joint strategy.

That's not what the President of the United States did.

He worked it out with the Israeli government.

He ignored pleas from the Gulf allies who said,

do not do this because it is going to affect our security,

as indeed it has,

and he failed to even talk to our major allies,

both in Asia and in Europe.

So as a result, the Europeans and the Asian allies said,

we're suffering the consequences for a decision

we had no input in,

and now you're asking us to solve it.

With a diplomat's perspective,

Eva Daldor, the former US ambassador to NATO

and the Obama administration,

Senior Fellow,

Harvard Belfer Center, Mr. Ambassador,

it's always great to compare notes

and we appreciate your insights.

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