NATO boss Mark Rutte has blown the gaffe. 

The secretary-general of the imperialist war alliance, and former conservative premier of the Netherlands, has long been the most obsequious appeaser of Donald Trump among European leaders, exceeding even Keir Starmer in that respect. He once even called the US President “daddy” in an attempt at ingratiation.

In his zeal to keep the erratic Maga president onside, above all with Nato’s war against Russia in Ukraine, Rutte this week boasted about how much support Washington’s “allies” had given it during the lawless US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

“Country after country, ally after ally after ally, have made their bases available for Epic Fury,” the egregious Rutte told Trump’s favourite TV station, Fox News, using the Pentagon code name for the disastrous operation.

He suggested that between four and five thousand US planes had taken off from European bases for missions against Iran.

Rutte specified Italy as an important supporter of the campaign. “If you look at Italy, 500 US planes took off from US bases in Italy to support Epic Fury. This is massive,” he said.

This revelation was aimed at dousing Trump’s anger at the lack of support he believes he received during his failed adventure from Nato members, which Rutte fears may intensify Washington moves to downgrade its military presence in Europe.

However, it also threw far-right Italian premier Giorgia Meloni under the bus. She had gone public with her opposition to the war against Iran, which has been massively unpopular with the Italian public.

The leader of the Green and Left Alliance in Italy, Angelo Bonelli, has demanded that she come clean. “The Italian government lied to parliament, keeping 500 American flights hidden,” he said.  “The fact is that Italy participated in the war against Iran, a crazy war.”

Rome claims that the flights were only “technical and logistical” rather than directly involved in bombing raids, as if you could have the second without the first. The apparatus of aggression is not so neatly disaggregated.

We can be sure that what is true of Meloni and Italy is just as true of Starmer and Britain. We do not need the loose-tongued Rutte to tell us that British bases have been used to support the war because Starmer has admitted as much.

That has not stopped Starmer from claiming that he “kept Britain out” of the conflict, which has been an epic setback for the US and Israel and is subject to a precarious ceasefire.

Rutte also said that he was “completely behind” Trump’s war strategy, making him perhaps the last sentient soul in the world who believes in that catastrophically miscued plan.

And he exalted European countries’ arms build-up, praising Trump for having forced them to spend more on the military and pointing out that this had created work in the US arms industry as a result, something trade unions pushing for more such spending here would do well to note.

All this exposes not just the double-dealing of Starmer, Meloni and the like. It highlights the continuing dangers of the alliance with the bellicose and impulsive Trump and his helpmate in war, Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Andy Burnham should learn the lesson and keep his distance from the US president and the preposterous Rutte.

He should also stop trying to find “creative ways” to release more cash for the military. This is what it is spent on – not national defence but assisting US-Israeli interventionism throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Trade unions should get behind the spirit of last weekend’s tremendous anti-war conference in London and back a peace agenda for Britain under Burnham.