US President Donald Trump

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — If European leaders are miffed at President Donald Trump’s attacks on Iran, do not expect to see any public criticism — at least until the close of the Nato summit on Wednesday when his plane is headed safely back across the Atlantic.

Trump may have embarrassed European leaders by claiming Iran was not interested in speaking to them and only wanted to speak to Trump — about the same time as Iranian officials were actually meeting with European negotiators in Geneva.

He may have irritated allies by striking Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend without consulting them and giving them the briefest of notice before bombs started falling.

But right now, the focus of the other 31 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is to get through this week’s abbreviated annual summit with minimal disruption from the notoriously anti-Nato American president, participants and observers at the meeting said.

Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte, in fact, on Tuesday illustrated the effort to manage Trump using lessons learned from dealing with him over the four years of his first term and the first months of his second: lay on the praise and flattery and make clear that he is a winner.

“Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no one else dared to do. It makes us all safer,” Rutte wrote to Trump in a text message as the US president began his journey to The Hague on Air Force One. Trump immediately posted screenshots of the message on social media.

Rutte went on to tell Trump he had........

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