TEHRAN — There is a particular kind of cowardice that dresses itself in the language of responsibility.
It speaks of de-escalation while providing the runways. It warns of unintended consequences while fueling the aircraft. It invokes international law while granting access to the bases from which that law is systematically violated.
This is the cowardice that has defined Europe’s response to the American and Israeli aggression against Iran—a performance of concern that thinly veils a deeper, more shameful reality: the continent’s willing subordination to Washington’s imperial violence.
The geography of this complicity is precise and damning. At RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, American bombers now operate from British sovereign territory, their missions against Iranian civilian infrastructure launched from colonial remnants that should embarrass any modern democracy.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s supposed initial refusal to participate lasted exactly as long as Donald Trump’s patience—a telephone call reportedly featuring the observation that Starmer was “no Winston Churchill” proved sufficient to reverse decades of claimed adherence to international norms.
Today, B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s thunder from Fairford, HMS Dragon patrols with million-pound missiles, and London insists this is all “defensive.”
France offers a variation on this theme of legalistic hypocrisy.
President Emmanuel Macron delivered an address acknowledging that international law was being “trampled on,” yet authorized American aircraft to use French soil and dispatched the Charles de Gaulle toward the Persian Gulf.
The French military presence in Erbil, long presented as part of the anti-ISIS coalition, now feeds intelligence directly into the American targeting apparatus.
Macron’s careful distinction—that France cannot “approve” the operation while declining to condemn it—captures perfectly Europe’s moral contortionism.
The French base in Erbil, already exposed as an intelligence node for U.S. targeting, came under fire—wounding six soldiers and destroying a helicopter on the ground.
Macron announced that Arnaud Fricon, a senior French officer and deputy commander of the 7th Battalion in Erbil, was killed in the attack.
Germany’s position under Friedrich Merz represents perhaps the most depressing capitulation.
During his White House visit, as Trump railed against Spain’s refusal to participate, Merz stood in silence—a mute testament to Europe’s emasculation.
The German leader declared that “now is not the moment to lecture our partners,” emphasizing that American forces would continue operating from Ramstein Air Base.
This is the same Ramstein now receiving bombers diverted from Spanish bases after Madrid’s refusal.
Germany has become a pressure valve for American frustration, absorbing what Spain rejected, transforming its territory into a transit hub for aggression.
Italy’s contradiction is equally stark. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told parliament that the U.S.-Israeli operation violated international law, yet Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni merely warns of “unpredictable consequences” while refusing to prevent Italian bases from facilitating the war.
Meloni also called the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran illegal. She said: “Unilateral interventions conducted outside the perimeter of international law — this is where we must place the American and Israeli intervention against Iran.”
The distinction between acknowledging illegality and refusing to enable it seems lost on Rome.
Only Spain has broken this pattern of performative hand-wringing.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s refusal to allow American use of the Rota naval base and Morón airbase represents something rare in contemporary European politics: a statement of principle backed by action.
When Trump threatened to sever trade relations and boasted like a mafia boss that “we could just fly in and use it, nobody’s going to tell us not to,” Sánchez responded with a direct appeal: “No to war.”
He said Washington has been playing “Russian roulette with the destiny of millions” and withdrew Spain’s ambassador from Israel.
The Spanish position is not without complexities—Madrid has deployed a frigate to Cyprus for “defensive” purposes—but it represents a fracture in the European consensus of convenient complicity.
The consequences of Europe’s choices are now arriving with mathematical inevitability.
Iran’s defensive closure of the Strait of Hormuz for its aggressors—through which approximately twenty percent of global LNG and significant oil transit—has triggered an energy crisis that exposes the continent’s strategic vulnerability.
Brent crude has surged past one hundred dollars per barrel. European natural gas prices have nearly doubled from thirty to over sixty euros per megawatt-hour.
The International Energy Agency’s reserve releases are temporary palliatives that cannot address the fundamental reality: Europe’s fossil fuel dependence has trapped it in the very geopolitical vulnerabilities its policies promised to eliminate.
This is not random misfortune. The continent that enabled the destruction of Iranian infrastructure now watches its own industrial competitiveness evaporate.
The nations that provided bases for aggression now face rationing and recession.
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies warns that a prolonged closure could triple gas prices to levels matching the 2022 shock, with Europe disproportionately affected.
Every European household heating bill carries the hidden surcharge of Europe’s bewilderment and cowardice.
The timing exposes Europe’s strategic incoherence.
The continent remains mired in Ukraine, where the diversion of air defense systems to the Middle East has left Kyiv increasingly exposed.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warns that Ukraine must not “slip off the agenda,” yet acknowledges that key capabilities are in short supply across the West.
Europe finds itself stretched between two conflicts, its resources depleted, its strategic autonomy revealed as the fiction it always was.
The uncomfortable truth is that Europe had alternatives.
It could have followed Spain’s example and refused base access. It could have imposed real costs on Washington for its unilateralism. It could have pursued genuine mediation rather than token diplomatic gestures.
Instead, it chose the path of least resistance, hoping to maintain transatlantic harmony while avoiding direct culpability.
This strategy has failed on all counts: Europe is now implicated in the aggression, suffering its economic consequences, and discovering that its American ally respects neither its interests nor its dignity.
Dominique de Villepin, who electrified the United Nations in 2003 with his speech opposing the Iraq War, has watched with despair. “Democracy is not the goal,” he told Le Monde. “This conflict follows an imperial logic aimed at cementing U.S. domination and giving Israel security at any cost.”
His 2003 words echo across the decades: “You cannot advance law by circumventing it.” Today, European leaders do not dare utter them.
When Trump threatened Spain with economic destruction for its principled stand, he revealed the true nature of the “alliance” that European leaders cling to with such desperation.
The question is no longer whether Europe can afford to defy Washington, but whether it can afford not to.
After decades of strategic submission, the answer appears to be no—and Europe is paying the price in currency it cannot afford to lose: its energy security, its economic stability, and whatever remained of its moral standing in a world that watches its hypocrisy with growing contempt.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
