An Attack On One

Joe Lieberman was on Fox News Sunday this morning and made an interesting suggestion: Just as NATO invoked Article V–an attack on one is an attack on all–for the first time after the 9/11 attacks, we should make the same gesture with respect to the al Qaeda attacks in Spain last week. That makes sense to me: It seizes the initiative and makes a bold statement.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. John A. Kalb says:

    Sounds like a great idea.

    I just don’t know if Zapatero would go for it.

  2. Delta Dave says:

    Yeah, I agree with the first comment…I think Spain surrendered before there was an opportunity to involke Article V of the NATO mutual defense treaty.

  3. Mithras says:

    Good idea, Joe. NATO should invade Morocco.

  4. for the record, do any of the americans remember what the american government did with the European Consideration to invoke Article V of the NATO charter with regards to the attack on the USA??? Or would that way lead to the problem of the effort to use that same article to help ‘leverage’ the Turkish position as a part of the prelude to ‘liberate’ Iraq???

    Not that I would wish to complicate the current effort to paint spain as ‘lost’ – especially not with Spanish Troops Still In Iraq, a point that seems to complicate some of the NeoCon folks who are still clueless about the real situation.