War with Iran, Netanyahu’s lifelong obsession, becomes reality

The war on Iran threatens Europe’s security and economy, yet even as the US violates international law, governments that once vehemently opposed the war in Iraq now limit themselves to muted protest.

European leaders’ impotent hand-wringing in response to the war Israel and the US launched on 28 February against Iran – and against international law – reflects the disarray of a ruling class trained to conform to a US ‘model’ that has become indefensible. There has been a mixture of panic at the prospect of crossing Donald Trump, dread of energy shortages and an economic crisis, fear of a Ukrainian rout because of a lack of US support, and the dizzying prospect of Russia’s economic and diplomatic rehabilitation.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron have so far met each display of force from President Trump and his Israeli ally (or tutor) with a two-stage response: first they cave in – and then they complain.

Time after time – whether it was a case of coercion by means of tariffs, demands to double military spending, Israeli massacres in Gaza, the bombing of Yemen, Lebanon and Iran, or the kidnapping and assassination of foreign leaders as a routine diplomatic method – Europe’s response has been acquiescence followed by pained reservations along the lines of ‘OK, but not like that’. Only defending Ukraine – now the secular religion of Europe’s elites – and the threat of an invasion of Greenland have elicited European protests that rise above mere mumbles.

The illegal, irrational and reckless war waged by Israel and the US against Iran has produced the usual back-and-forth ritual. Even though no one takes Washington’s justifications seriously – neutralising Iran’s nuclear programme and the ballistic missile threat to the US, hastening the fall of the Iranian regime – Europe’s major nations, with the exception of Spain (see The fiction that moves the world forward, if we defend it, in this issue), have obediently taken the aggressors’ side: aggressors who did not think it necessary to forewarn their allies of a conflict that would impose devastating economic (…)

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(3) Laurent Fabius, 37, quai d’Orsay: Diplomatie française, 2012-2016 (37, quai d’Orsay: French diplomacy 2012-2016), Plon, Paris, 2016.

(6) Joint statement by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, 14 January 2020.