EDITORIAL: Tehran threatens the countries that host American bases, and we stand with them

There will be a letter

A letter, names, an article

There will be a letter.

There will be names of states. There will be a word, disposal. There will be an article of law, 3(f) of an old UN resolution. There will be a room, the Security Council’s.

Everything points to it. No document proves it yet. It is a prediction. We sign it.

We sign it because the pieces are already on the table. A number. A word. An article. Only an address is missing.

Those who live next door

Around the American bases in Europe, people live with the roar of aircraft. They know it. They no longer hear it.

About 80,000 American troops are spread across the continent, Stars and Stripes writes. Around them, towns. Schools. German, British, Romanian, Greek families.

Windows that rattle as a tanker passes. Children who no longer even look up.

Since September 25, that roar has another meaning.

The sound of aircraft has become an address.

The word “disposal”

7:26 a.m. in Tehran

On September 25, 2026, at 7:26 a.m. Tehran time, the official IRNA agency publishes a message from Kazem Gharibabadi. He is Iran’s deputy foreign minister. In charge of legal and international affairs.

He first wrote it on X. Governments that “placed their territory at the disposal of the United States,” he says, “cannot evade their responsibility.”

Then the last sentence. “This participation will not go unanswered.”

He does not say which governments. He does not say what answer. He leaves the sentence open.

In New York, it is 11:56 p.m. the night before. Four minutes to midnight. The message crosses the night.

A lawyer’s threat

The word is not chosen at random. Disposal.

It is the vocabulary of General Assembly Resolution 3314, adopted on December 14, 1974. It lists among acts of aggression a state placing its territory at the disposal of another state to commit aggression against a third.

The man who writes it runs the legal side of Iranian diplomacy. He knows the weight of every word.

A threat, written in a lawyer’s language.

The law in the sentence. The threat at the end.

We stand with them

Who is targeted

Who lent its territory? Stars and Stripes summed it up on September 24.

American bases in Germany, the United Kingdom, Romania and Greece played major roles in operations against Iran. Italy was criticized by American officials. Spain refused to serve as a launchpad.

Four countries on the front line. Two more on the margins. None named by Tehran.

These countries did not choose the date of February 28. They chose an alliance. Long before.

Berlin, London, Bucharest, Athens, Madrid

We say it without hedging.

We stand with the European countries that host allied bases, against the doctrine of co-belligerence the Islamic Republic has laid down since September 25, because its deputy minister wrote that day that their participation would not go unanswered.

We stand with Berlin. We stand with London, Bucharest and Athens. We stand with Rome, criticized or not. We stand with Madrid, even when Madrid said no.

The adversary is not a people. It is a decision. Signed, dated, published by a state agency.

You do not threaten the host without threatening the house.

What Rutte said

Des Moines, September 23

It all starts with a sentence from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. On September 23, in Des Moines, Iowa.

Before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, he gives three reasons the Alliance serves the United States. One, it protects America from Russia and China, all the way to the Arctic. Two, it is “one big platform of power projection.” Three, Europeans are finally paying more.

For the second, he cites 5,000 aircraft taking off from European bases in support of the American operation against Iran since February 28. A count stopped in mid-April, he specifies. Probably far more since, according to the transcript published by NATO.

What he was arguing

One could argue, he adds, that the operation would have been impossible without Europe as a platform.

Rutte was speaking to Americans. He was making the case for the Alliance before an audience that doubts what it brings in. He named no country, no runway, no target. He spoke of aircraft, and of what they prove.

Beside him sat the American ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker. Washington gets a great deal from its European bases, he said, according to Stars and Stripes.

Rutte also puts a question to the room. Why did it take the United States to neutralize Iran’s nuclear capability? His answer: a stronger NATO would let Europeans take care of their own neighborhood.

He recalls that two-thirds of the Allies were not even reaching 2% in defense spending. He is selling the effort. He is selling the base.

The sentence was a sales pitch. It has become an exhibit for the prosecution.

A plea in Des Moines, an exhibit in Tehran.

What Tehran does with it

From platform to infrastructure

In the IRNA dispatch, the platform becomes infrastructure.

Europe, Gharibabadi writes, “formed part of the infrastructure of that aggression.” The agency speaks of 4,000 to 5,000 flights from Europe. Rutte said 5,000, counted through mid-April.

IRNA dates to February 28 the start of what it calls the American-Israeli war of aggression.

NATO’s figure and IRNA’s date match. The word does not.

A platform is something you boast about. Infrastructure is something you target. The shift fits in one word.

The function

In other words, the Iranian ministry is not commenting on a statistic. It is opening a case file.

The same day, another IRNA dispatch reports a meeting in New York. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi receives his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares. He asks Europeans to drop their double standards and respect international law.

The same day again, President Masoud Pezeshkian says his country is not choosing war, reports The Express Tribune, citing agencies.

The case file and the visit. The threat and the outstretched hand.

Tehran is not counting flights. It is counting accomplices.

Article 3(f) against Europe

A text, an admission, a refusal

The adversary deserves its best sentence. Here it is.

Resolution 3314 lists among acts of aggression a state placing its territory at the disposal of another to commit aggression against a third. Rutte says the operation was impossible without Europe. So Europe took part.

And a NATO ally itself kept its distance. On March 2, Spanish Foreign Minister Albares refused the use of its two southern bases, Rota and its inland sister air base, for any action going beyond the bilateral agreement, or incompatible with the United Nations, Al Jazeera reports.

Three supports

We do not caricature it. It is legal. It is dated. It is clever.

This argument cannot be turned with an adjective.

It rests on three supports. A UN text. A NATO admission. A Spanish refusal.

The text, the admission, the refusal. Three exhibits. One case file, built for the prosecution.

Answering it takes proof. We have two.

Tehran’s best sentence deserves proof, not a shrug.

By its own rule

The Ukrainian mirror

First proof. On January 29, 2026, the Council of the European Union sanctions the Islamic Republic again. The reason: its continued military support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

The Council targets Iran’s state drone program. It lists Khojir Missile Development and Production, a pillar of the ballistic missile program. This sanctions regime, created on July 20, 2023, now hits 24 people and 26 entities.

That support, the Council writes, remains a direct threat to the Union’s security. The framework was widened on May 14, 2024, after the drone and missile attacks Iran launched against Israel in April that year.

By its own rule, the Islamic Republic would be Moscow’s co-belligerent. By its own rule, every drone supplied for the aggression against Ukraine would engage its responsibility. By its own rule, the Ukrainian cities that were struck would have accounts to settle with it.

Tehran does not apply that rule to itself.

The missing judge

Second proof. Resolution 3314 recommends that the Security Council use it as a guide to determine an act of aggression. That is what the note from the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law recalls.

The same note finds that the definition has almost never served that primary purpose. It mostly fed, later on, the definition of the crime of aggression before the International Criminal Court.

Aggression is determined in a forum. Not in a post on X.

Two proofs. Neither is an adjective. Both are dated.

Law applied only to others is no longer law.

An admission and a doubt

Rutte’s sentence

We must concede two things. They cost us.

The first. It was Rutte, not Tehran, who supplied the word platform and the figure of 5,000. A secretary general defending the Alliance in Iowa handed an exhibit to Iran’s case file.

An ally’s doubt

The second. This war divides the West itself. Madrid refused its bases, citing the United Nations.

Tehran is not the one saying it. A European Union and NATO government is.

And yet neither changes the substance. An admission about logistics is not a verdict. A disagreement among allies is not a license to threaten.

We publish both facts. A camp that hid them would have no credibility left for the rest.

It is not comfortable. It is accurate.

We concede the word. We refuse the threat.

Madrid said no

March 2

Madrid refused Rota. Madrid refused its inland sister base.

On March 2, Albares said that, according to all his information, the bases were not being used for the operation, Al Jazeera reports. Defense Minister Margarita Robles allowed only humanitarian support, case by case.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom, for their part, supported or were preparing to support the American operations, according to the same source.

Where the planes went

According to FlightRadar24, cited by Al Jazeera, 15 American aircraft left the bases in southern Spain after the first strikes. At least seven landed at Ramstein, in Germany.

The Spanish refusal did not stop the planes. It moved them to another host.

A Spanish no. A German yes. One threat for both.

And yet Gharibabadi’s threat makes no distinction. It targets the governments that lent their territory, without naming them.

Those who said no wait to find out whether they are on the list. Those who said yes already know.

Seven planes changed countries. The threat has no address.

Two ledgers

Washington counts

Here is the vertigo. The host countries are counted twice. For the same thing.

In Washington, the Pentagon is reviewing its presence in Europe. Pete Hegseth said allies’ flexibility in granting access and overflight weighs in the decision, according to Stars and Stripes.

The paper also reports that one option would withdraw up to 40,000 troops from the continent. And Whitaker lets slip that Washington is asking what it gets from its European bases.

Tehran counts

Whitaker goes further. The United States long believed it could fight two wars at once, he says. It was telling itself stories. He fears a move by China in the Pacific could come with a move by Russia in Europe.

These bases also serve toward the Pacific, he adds. That is why they matter to us. China remains the first threat. Europe’s bases also look toward it.

In Tehran, the deputy minister counts the same access. The same overflights. To demand an accounting.

One ledger says: you lent, stay useful. One ledger says: you lent, you will answer for it. One ledger says what the other leaves out.

In between, towns that signed nothing. A child who hears a tanker take off does not know he now lives in an infrastructure.

He only knows the house shakes a little.

Lending a base means being counted twice.

A threat with no address

What answer, against whom

Will not go unanswered. What answer? Against whom? When?

The IRNA dispatch does not say.

A threat that names can be argued with. A threat that hovers settles in.

That is the sentence’s function. A precise threat can be deterred. A vague threat is feared everywhere. It forces every host capital to wonder whether it is the one being talked about.

What would tip it over

We know the two signs to watch for. A letter to the Security Council naming host states. Or a threat naming a base.

The day the name of a host country appears in an official Iranian document, the doctrine will have become a list.

That day, it will be too late to choose one’s words.

And yet a vague threat has its limit. It commits no one. It says nothing Tehran would later have to own before a forum.

A blurry threat is already a policy.

One voice, before the letter

To the Alliance

We demand that NATO and the European Union answer Gharibabadi with one voice. Before the letter. Not after.

We demand that Madrid be defended like Berlin. The threat does not sort.

We demand that Washington stop measuring its allies only by the number of access rights granted. They are the ones carrying the risk.

We demand that host capitals say what they authorized, and why. A host that owns its decision is harder to intimidate than a host that stays silent.

We demand that Madrid not believe itself safe. Its bases emptied in March. The threat does not read flight logs.

To ourselves

Finally, we demand of ourselves the same rule for all. If lending your soil commits you, supplying drones commits you too. The EU Council wrote as much on January 29.

Act by act, the war Trump is waging against the Islamic Republic will be judged on its effects. An ally threatened for supporting it is not left alone for all that.

On January 29, the same Council also sanctioned fifteen people and six entities for the repression of peaceful protests in Iran. In total, 247 people and 50 entities. It expressed its solidarity with the Iranian people.

So do we. The adversary is the ministry that threatens. Not those it governs.

An Alliance that stays silent before a threat accepts it.

The letter we are waiting for

Back to the prediction

We predicted a letter. We do not know when it will come. We know what it would contain. A word, disposal. And names.

The word has changed meaning since September 25. It used to mean hospitality between allies. The Islamic Republic wants it to mean guilt.

A city threatened alone

If tomorrow a European city is threatened for hosting an allied base, will we accept that it alone bears the price of a decision we made together?

Planes will still take off from Ramstein. Windows will still rattle.

What remains is to decide at whose disposal we place our word.

At the disposal of our allies. Never of the threat.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• IRNA — Gharibabadi on Europe as infrastructure of aggression and on host countries, September 25, 2026
• NATO — transcript of Mark Rutte in Iowa, 5,000 aircraft for Operation Epic Fury, September 23, 2026
• Council of the EU — sanctions over Iran’s military support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, January 29, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• Stars and Stripes — European bases and operations against Iran, Whitaker and Rutte, September 24, 2026
• Al Jazeera — Spain refuses its southern bases for strikes on Iran, March 2, 2026
• UN Audiovisual Library of International Law — note on Resolution 3314 defining aggression, 2008