{"id":184068,"date":"2025-06-14T15:22:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/184068\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T15:22:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:22:12","slug":"pure-orwell-europe-condemns-iran-for-attacks-on-its-own-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/184068\/","title":{"rendered":"Pure Orwell: Europe condemns Iran for attacks on its own territory"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Israeli warplanes struck<\/a>\u00a0Iran<\/a> this week \u2014 violating Iranian sovereignty in a brazen act of aggression, killing scores of civilians alongside top military commanders and nuclear scientists and inviting Iran\u2019s equally indiscriminate retaliatory strikes<\/a> \u2014 Europe\u2019s leaders didn\u2019t condemn the attack. <\/p>\n

They perversely endorsed it and condemned Iran for the attacks on its own territory. <\/p>\n

The president of France Emmanuel Macron set the tone by condemning<\/a> Iran\u2019s \u201congoing nuclear program\u201d and reaffirming \u201cIsrael\u2019s right to defend itself and secure its security.\u201d President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen seemed<\/a> to have spoken from the same script \u201creiterating Israel\u2019s right to defend itself,\u201d embellished by some generic platitudes about the need for restraint and de-escalation. <\/p>\n

The German foreign ministry went a step further and actually \u201cstrongly condemned<\/a>\u201d Iran for \u201can indiscriminate attack on Israeli territory\u201d \u2014 even before Tehran launched its missiles in response for Israel\u2019s attack on its territory \u2014 while fully endorsing Israel\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

This Orwellian rhetoric isn\u2019t just incompetence or ignorance. It\u2019s the culmination of years of European diplomatic malpractice that helped to manufacture this crisis \u2014 and exposed the “rules-based order” as a corpse. Europe\u2019s double standards killed its credibility.<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s stance on Ukraine invoked Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter with political clarity: “All members shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state.” Yet when Israel<\/a> attacked Iran \u2014 with no legal basis for self-defense<\/a> \u2014 Europe<\/a> de-facto reframed aggression as virtue, and condoned it.<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s moral and diplomatic collapse hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed. Two globally respected voices delivered particularly damning verdicts. Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Laureate and former head of the U.N.\u2019s atomic energy watchdog, offered a humiliating crash course in international law to the German foreign ministry. <\/p>\n

Reacting to Berlin\u2019s endorsement<\/a> of Israel\u2019s \u201ctargeted strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities\u201d (never mind the hundreds of civilians killed in these strikes), El Baradei reminded<\/a> it that such strikes are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions to which Germany is a party, and that the use of force in international relations \u201cis generally prohibited in the UN Charter with the exception of the right of self-defense in the case of armed attack or upon authorization by the Security Council in the case of collective security action.\u201d <\/p>\n

For her part, Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, reacting to Macron\u2019s statement, commented<\/a> that \u201con the day Israel, unprovoked, has attacked Iran, the president of a major European power, finally admits that in the Middle East<\/a>, Israel, and only Israel, has the right to defend itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The message of the likes of El Baradei and Albanese is unequivocal: when Europe applauds Israel\u2019s strike while condemning Russia\u2019s invasion, it doesn\u2019t uphold universal rules \u2014 it enforces its tribalist identity: \u201crules\u201d only apply to adversaries, not friends. This is fatal to Europe\u2019s pretense of moral authority \u2014 it has been well noticed in the Global South, but also among many European citizens too.<\/p>\n

This pretense looks even more detached from reality given that the crisis in the Middle East erupted on fertile ground prepared by serial European failure. First it was the E3 (Britain, France, Germany) failure to uphold the JCPOA following the U.S. withdrawal under Donald Trump\u2019s presidency in 2018. While the EU offered rhetorical support for the nuclear deal, it buckled to U.S. sanctions and refused to shield EU firms willing to engage with Iran. It let the JCPOA die, de-facto creating a vacuum for escalation. <\/p>\n

Further, while mediators like Oman and Qatar brokered talks on a new nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran, the EU pushed<\/a> for an IAEA resolution censoring Iran days before Israel\u2019s strike, torpedoing de-escalation and contributing to creating a more menacing, dangerous security environment, with the U.N. Security Council sanctions snapback and potential Iran\u2019s withdrawal<\/a> from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) lurking in the background.<\/p>\n

Each of these failures validated Tehran\u2019s view that it is futile to negotiate with Europe. The E3\/EU are now seen not just as a weak party unable to fulfil its commitments under the nuclear agreement, but also an actively destructive player undermining Iran\u2019s security and regional stability.<\/p>\n

European powers\u2019 staggering descent into diplomatic irrelevance was starkly illustrated by Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi\u2019s categorical rejection<\/a> of his British counterpart David Lammy\u2019s pleas to de-escalate. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine why Tehran should heed these calls when they come from parties it sees as actively colluding with the aggressors.<\/p>\n

The likely fallout from Europe\u2019s diplomatic self-sabotage is that it incinerated whatever residual trust it still had in Iran and the broader Global South. It all but guaranteed proliferation by giving Iranians \u2014 now not just the hardliners \u2014 a powerful incentive to seek nuclear weaponization, an outcome that could have been avoided had Europe engaged in serious, good faith talks with Iran on reviving the nuclear deal. Iran\u2019s withdrawal from the NPT is no longer a merely theoretical possibility.<\/p>\n

All of these developments dramatically increase the likelihood of blowback against European interests: a regional war in the Middle East means more uncontrolled migration, heightened risks of terrorism on European soil or against European interests in the region, and energy shocks if Iran delivers on its threats to block the Hormuz Straight, the world\u2019s principal oil trade artery.<\/p>\n

Absent an urgent but unlikely course correction<\/a>, such as holding Israel accountable for its regional aggression, Europe\u2019s decay will accelerate. When Brussels exempts allies from rules imposed on rivals, it doesn\u2019t preserve peace \u2014 it signs its own geopolitical suicide note. <\/p>\n

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