CIRS NEWSWATCH: EXPERT INSIGHTS: EUROPE’S EMBARRASSING RECKONING
- May 9
- 2 min read
Two months into the war on Iran, the skeptics have been vindicated, and Europe’s center is slowly rediscovering the international law it abandoned in February.
Liberal globalism has collapsed; violent, lawless illiberalism epitomized by Trumpism fills the void. The European center, with Merz as its figurehead, was meant to be the counterweight. Instead, when the US and Israel struck Iran on February 28, German chancellor Merz refused to “lecture” allies, declared international law inapplicable, and, in June 2025, described Israel’s strikes as Europe’s “dirty work.” This subservience has cost Europe enormous political capital globally.
Strikes do not produce stable orders. They produce destroyed infrastructure, civilian casualties—like the strike on a girls’ school in Minab that killed 160 children—and the siege narrative the regime needs to suppress dissent. The protests that shook Iran in late 2025 were the organic material from which transformation is built. That material is now buried under rubble.
Sixty days of bombing later, the German chancellor has discovered nuance, conceding that Washington went in without a strategy and is “being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.” Welcome, Herr Bundeskanzler. The Norwegians and the Spaniards have been holding your seat. Jonas Gahr Støre declared the strikes incompatible with international law from day one, and Pedro Sánchez closed Spanish airspace to American aircraft. The European Parliament’s S&D Group backed him.
In April, Spain, Slovenia, and Ireland pushed to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement; a Citizens’ Initiative gathered over a million signatures. Germany and Italy blocked the move, but Europe is changing. The center of gravity is moving away from the civilizationist scaffolding that made the bombing seem righteous, and from the impunity that protected Israel from consequences.
International law is either applied to all or it protects none; the world is waiting to see if Europe finally understands this.
