Ben Harnwell

masking a political refusal for the time being by the fact that we know about this.

Because in the Spanish situation, the government was very gung-ho in telling all and sundry that they'd said no, that they'd blocked the airspace to the United States.

With regards to the Italian situation, Steve, this actually happened by all accounts last week.

It's only come out into the press now, and it first came out to the Italian press, to Corriere della Sera.

through one of their sources, presumed to be, though it's not said explicitly, on the Italian side rather than the US side.

And that, Steve, I think is the indication that this leaked out to the press, is the indication that the government really wants the Italian people to know that they have said no.

And that's because there is a lot of antipathy here in Italy towards the US manoeuvres in Iran specifically.

But it's still, I think, worth taking note of.

It might happen on a sort of bilateral basis with the US tapping certain countries like the UK or Greece, for example, who has been quite cooperative.

Whether it's going to take place formally through the NATO infrastructure, at the present moment, I'd find that slightly more doubtful that the elements are there to do that.

I frankly find it difficult that the president's going to succeed in getting any sort of bilateral agreements country by country to come on board on this.

Because if it's true that the president is looking for an off-ramp here...

Here in continental Europe, they're not looking for an off-ramp because they never got on the on-ramp in the first place.

And they're sort of extremely concerned that they don't want to be moving in that direction.

Largely because the on-ramp isn't a static thing.

It's dynamic.

It's like a conveyor belt.

You need to get on and do nothing and you're going to be moved further on into this.

And that's really not where the European countries are.

The reason being, as I've indicated before...