It remains unclear how much damage the United States military strikes last Saturday caused to Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. But the action, which had no apparent justification under international law, carries profound implications beyond the Middle East for the global order itself.
In the hours after the operation, Donald Trump secured a ceasefire between Israel and Iran after 12 days of missile attacks on one another’s cities. His administration expects to return to negotiations with Tehran within days, with the Islamic republic under greater pressure than before to abandon its nuclear programme.
Iran’s weakness reflects Israel’s success in neutralising the threat from Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hizbullah and destroying the Syrian armed forces after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. And although regime change in Tehran remains unlikely, a reconfiguration of the leadership and a more pragmatic policy outlook is possible.
This could see Iran joining its neighbours in the Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in prioritising economic development over ideology. The greatest obstacle to Trump’s vision of a stable Middle East, ripe for investment, is Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories and its bombardment and blockade of Gaza.
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The European Union leaders’ failure to sanction Israel for its human rights violations highlights Europe’s ineffectiveness and its loss of influence diplomatically. The US attacks on Iran represent a humiliation of Washington’s European allies, who have worked for more than 20 years towards a diplomatic solution to this issue.
Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz abandoned European lip service to the rules-based order even before the US intervention, saying that Israel was doing the “dirty work” for “all of us” with its strikes on Iran. Nato secretary general Mark Rutte praised Trump’s “decisive action” on Iran before he thanked the US president for bullying Europe into spending more on defence.
The impetus for increased defence spending is the threat from Russia but Europe has not secured a seat at the table negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. This could see Washington and Moscow work out a settlement that will shape the continent’s future security architecture without the participation of European leaders. Trump’s action in Iran and Europe’s acquiescence further weaken the authority of the international system with the United Nations at its centre.
The EU this week formally renewed its commitment to multilateralism based on international law, including the UN Charter. Ireland should keep up the pressure on its EU partners to take that commitment more seriously and to act upon it. The alternative to international law is a law of the jungle that benefits only a few great powers and under which the EU is unlikely to flourish.
