Iran, US-Israel war on Iran, Strait of Hormuz, Middle East and north Africa, Nato
The US president’s cry-wolf threats are losing their effect while European leaders are, at last, shifting from sycophancy to opposition
Europeans are on what might be called “a journey” when it comes to the US-Israel war against Iran, now apparently in a ceasefire after Donald Trump’s 11th-hour U-turn, calling off, for the time being, his threat to annihilate Iranian civilisation. The crisis in the Middle East marks the latest painful step, after the shock of the US’s betrayal of Ukraine and Trump’s threat to seize Greenland, in Europe’s emancipation from Washington. The journey is not linear, and it is dreaded by most European leaders. But the direction of travel is undeniable.
Initially, most European politicians in power all but endorsed the illegal US and Israeli attack against Iran. If the sycophantic Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, stood at one end of the spectrum of European opinion and Pedro Sánchez at the other, most European governments were tacitly closer to Rutte’s embrace of Trump than to the Spanish prime minister’s principled opposition.
Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist
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