ICELAND: 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...

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