Americans, Go Home

NATO's smallest ally, Iceland, last week asked its biggest partner to go home. The Icelandic Althing (Parliament) passed a resolution urging the withdrawal of all foreign troops, meaning the 5,000 U.S. soldiers and airmen who have been stationed in unarmed Iceland--at its own request--since 1951. Pulling out would deprive the U.S. of an important early-warning radar establishment halfway between New York and Moscow, and the strategic $100 million Keflavik air base, where a squadron of F-89s is stationed.

What was wrong in Iceland? Partly, the answer was domestic politics. Premier Olafur Thor's coalition government broke up over the issue. Then the Progressive Party, Iceland's second biggest party, joined with several minority parties to push the measure through the Althing. All this might be changed by new elections in June, depending on who wins (the Progressives have 22% of the vote, the Communists about 15%). The possibility that the whole thing might be reversed in June led the Pentagon and State Department to play down the importance of the withdrawal request. Yet the reason that the request was good domestic politics is that many Icelanders share the prevailing Scandinavian distaste for the presence of foreign troops in peacetime, and are convinced that the dangers of war these days are much diminished. In other words, Iceland is willing to stay in NATO, but is not eager to share the burdens of collective security.

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