- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/73560376
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is a particularly revealing example. When Israel attacked Iran in June 2025, he praised it for doing the West’s “dirty work.” He defended the much larger American-Israeli bombing campaign launched in February 2026, declaring that this was “no time to lecture our allies on international law.”
Now Merz laments that the war has cost Europe more than €100 billion through higher energy prices. The “dirty work” has come with a hefty bill.
The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke of a “democratic transition” in Tehran as the U.S. and Israeli bombs began falling, now places the war’s price tag at €127 billion ($143 billion) in additional fossil fuels. Neither Merz nor von der Leyen are on the record of connecting publicly the outcome of the elections to the war on Iran, however.
Merz and von der Leyen epitomize a broader European failure. EU governments had little meaningful influence over Washington’s decision to go to war. Nevertheless, some, like Germany, supported it. Others, like France, acknowledged that the war violated international law, but put emphasis on Iran’s “destabilizing behaviour” in the region. Still others, like Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, and Cyprus cooperated by allowing the U.S. to use military bases on their territories to attack Iran. Spain’s Pedro Sánchez was a notable exception, fully opposing the war from the outset.
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Holy crap is this article bad.
There is a massive difference between allowing the US to fly missions from ones territory and going to war against Iran. Europeans mostly blame the US for high oil prices and not their local politicians.
Also this idea of the EU just waiting for the US to come and sort out the Ukraine war is laughable. That is not happening and honestly has not been the case for two years or so. The EU has ignored US wishes repeatedly. Like for example most of the anti refinery campaign Ukraine does against Russia is not just financed by the EU, but also a lot of the production of those drones has been quietly move on EU territory. There is clearly a plan to defeat Russia, which is actually pretty long term and currently being executed. That plan mostly does not involve the US, besides Patriot interceptors.
Europeans mostly blame the US for high oil prices and not their local politicians.
And who is to blame if not the guy that started a (useless) war which blocked the strait where 30% of oil pass from ?
Yes, our politicians are to blame for a lots of things but not for this.
There is clearly a plan to defeat Russia, which is actually pretty long term and currently being executed.
First time hearing this. Or are you referring to “plans” for disintegration of Russia into dozens of countries?
And they were also giddy about Venezuela abduction. Its a sad sad state of things.
Right now Russia is by far the biggest security problem in the EU. Venezuela under Maduro supported Russia. They also caused problems in the entire region, which countries like Spain, with deep ties in Latin America are not happy about either. At the same time it has the potential of opening up the Venezuelan oil market. For the EU the abduction of Maduro was a net benefit.
Venezuela under Maduro supported Russia.
It was more the other way around…
They also caused problems in the entire region
I think the entire region is well known for problems of many kinds and none of them have anything to do with who is the boss in Caracas.
For the EU the abduction of Maduro was a net benefit.
It proved once again that the leaders are nothing more than American lapdogs. No imagination for what even a concept of a plan could look like.
Maduro threatened to invade Guyana. For that he build up military forces at the border. It was seen as serious enough that Lula, who is not exactly a lover of US interest order the Brazilian military to the border to keep Venezuela in check.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana–Venezuela_crisis_(2023–2024)
I’m aware of that. But nothing came of it. And besides, the region is no stranger to violence. Cartels in many countries there function as warlords. That is their biggest and immediate problem.
Yup, they don’t operate on the material interests of Europe. Don’t know if they operate on vibes (values) or just self-interest that isn’t aligned with the majority of the European population. Either way they didn’t take the actions they could have taken to hit the brakes on US-Israel’s war on Iran and thus save Europe from the impending economic damage. They could have threatened to cut off Israel from the EU market. They could have threatened to stop enforcing sanctions on Iran. Instead they kept parroting US and Iarael’s bullshit. The increased cost of living is going great.
Credit where it’s due - they didn’t actively join the bombing party.
TLDR: Fuck USA.
Tldr fuck neolibs. And also fuck usa
And Merz, the disgusting excuse of a human being.
And Leyen, of course.
OK I agree that is more correct, but it is also longer. 😋
Obviously, but that is not an accurate summary of the article.
The only way out of this predicament is for EU leaders to follow Sanchez’s lead and refuse to play any role in supporting, in any way, any further U.S. or Israeli attacks against Iran. Instead, they should work to recover their own diplomatic role
Maybe a bit selective, but it is kind of accurate IMO.
The only way for me to logically interpret Trump and Vance’s actions in launching the Iran War are as a series of steps taken to try to force Iran to try develop a nuclear weapon, so I agree too.
Do you mean to legitimize nuking them preemptively? Or what would be the purpose of that?
No I am pointing out the Iran War was from the beginning going to be a disaster for Europe since the clear objective was to bomb Iran into escalating its retaliation so the US and Israel could then leverage that for domestic/internal power.
Also Trump needed an excuse not to give Ukraine any significant amount of ballistic missile interceptors and help retain his daddy’s (Putin) power, and the Iran War was the perfect conduit for Trump and Vance to launch every interceptor they could get their hands on as wastefully as possible.
I don’t think you need the Ukraine situation to derive the reasons for Trump bombing Iran. Israel has material reason to want to turn Iran into its puppet state or a failed state. That allows it to take more adjacent territory and/or resources without resistance. Trump entered the war because he’s paid handsomely by pro-Israel interests to do Israel’s bidding, and Mossad likely also has dirt on him. I think that is enough to explain what happened. Especially given the enormous military base damage sustained by the US. They didn’t have to take any of that to cut off air defences from Ukraine.
I mean, I have no idea I am just a rando with very limited information, but at the very least I would say being able to fire off all the ballistic missile interceptors was an attractive feature of the Iran War for Trump because it made being pressured into giving/selling more to Ukraine a non-issue.
No I am pointing out the Iran War was from the beginning going to be a disaster for Europe
Everybody new that before the attack, everybody apparently except Trump and Netanyahu.
Also Trump needed an excuse not to give Ukraine any significant amount of ballistic missile
Yes I suspect that was part of it all along, and also to increase oil prices to help Putin. It’s all absolutely disgusting.
There is no credible evidence Iran was not following the JCPOA, especially along terms of military escalation. How then must we evaluate the launching of the Iran War by the US and Israel? It leaves little room to even plausibly propose a hypothetical framing where the US and Israel haven’t acted DIRECTLY against european and global interests in launching the Iran War.
Rouhani,[327] Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the agreement was working well and that no one country could break it, reconfirming support for the deal. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that Iran was in compliance.[327]
In 2018, IAEA inspectors spent an aggregate of 3,000 calendar [person-]days in Iran, installing seals and collecting surveillance camera photos, measurement data, and documents for further analysis. In March 2018, IAEA Director Yukiya Amano said that the organization had verified that Iran was implementing its nuclear-related commitments.[328] On 30 April, the U.S. and Israel said that Iran had not disclosed a past covert nuclear weapons program to the IAEA, as required.[329][330]
On 8 May 2018, the U.S. officially withdrew from the JCPOA after Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum ordering reinstatement of sanctions.[333][334][335][336] The IAEA continued to certify Iranian compliance.[337] Other signatories said they would comply with the deal even absent the U.S.[338]
… to follow Sanchez’s lead …
Sanchez opposed the US because he thought this would help him personally as he fights for his political survival. I don’t buy into his morality and ethics. Sanchez and his party has been facing a series of corruption scandals in Spain, involving family members and close political allies, and he has no problem to closely engage with China, the largest dictatorship on earth (for example, he contracted China’s Huawei with Spain’s judicial wiretap system, while banning Huawei from the public network over security issues).
Just this week, another police raid in Spain arrested 6 people close to Sanchez, including one of his former ministers, the minister’s spouse, and Sanchez’s driver.
The only thing Sanchez has in mind is his re-election and staying in power.
Note that the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is an isolationist institution, for context.
What are you on about?
In January 2020, Republican US senator Tom Cotton accused the institute of antisemitism, calling it an “isolationist, blame America First money pit for so-called scholars who’ve written that American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid of the malign influence of Jewish money.”[20][17]
Ahh now I understand, you are a Zionist.
