European Support for Strikes on Iran Undermines Russia-Ukraine Peace Efforts
What happens in Western Asia does not stay in Western Asia
European leaders were quick to back Israeli and later US strikes on Iran in a bid to reaffirm wavering transatlantic ties. However, in doing so, they have harmed the prospects for peace in Eastern Europe by unintentionally solidifying the Kremlin’s skepticism about a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. In exchange for no material benefits or concrete strengthening of the NATO alliance, European politicians have needlessly weakened peace efforts on two continents in a single move.
While the likelihood of talks between US and Iranian officials resulting in a new nuclear agreement were always in doubt, President Donald Trump’s tacit acceptance and subsequent endorsement of Israel’s preemptive strikes on Iran along with his own airstrikes has confirmed the view in Tehran that negotiations were merely a trap.
By openly supporting the attacks, politicians like Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer have validated Moscow’s fear that European-supported talks will merely be a prelude to later fighting.
The insistence by figures such as France’s President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that Iran would have to give up its uranium enrichment efforts before calling for a cessation of fighting while demanding that Russia accept an immediate ceasefire as a precondition to negotiations ensures that from Moscow’s perspective military success will be seen as the only viable path forward.
Consistent in Russian policymaking discourse is the repeated concern that Western support for Ukraine is merely an effort to create an “anti-Russia.” Though European officials have continuously rejected this, with some plausibility, European leaders are reducing the risk tolerance that President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle will accept in peace talks.
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s remark that Israel was “doing the dirty work for us” by hitting Iran makes it clear to Moscow that Western leaders will not hesitate to embrace attacks against perceived threats, which undoubtedly includes the Russian Federation.
The negative implications of European support for the strikes is not their effects in isolation but rather that they compound Russian cynicism towards what they term “the collective West.”
Despite some initial optimism in the Kremlin towards potential Russia-US rapprochement, the Trump Administration’s prioritization of a mineral deal with Ukraine over addressing Russian concerns about the existing security structure has vindicated the slow-paced approach deployed by Russian diplomats.
Similarly, the rapid call by individual governments as well as the European Union for the lifting of sanctions on Syria along with the invitation and hosting in Paris of a jihadi rebel-turned-president confirms Putin’s belief that Europe’s engagement with the outside world is primarily defined by its opposition towards Russia.
Concerns about the durability of the transatlantic relationship and US commitment to the defence of its European allies have led the continent’s political leaders to adopt unnecessarily subservient attitudes towards Washington’s more bellicose Iran policies. Yet, despite occurring on the heels of a NATO summit, no tangible benefits have been secured from European self-vassalization.
By contrast, virtually all of the United States’ Middle Eastern partners—including those that have normalized relations with Israel—have condemned at least the Israeli strikes with Saudi Arabia and Oman having gone further by criticizing the United States’ “violation of Iranian sovereignty.”
The ability of countries that are far more exposed to potential conflict-induced instability and significantly more reliant on US security to vocally oppose attacks on Iran further diminishes European credibility in the eyes of Russian security officials.
Similarly, the last minute cancellation of trips by the Japanese prime minister and the South Korean president to the NATO summit in the Hague—in no small part due to the US bombing of Iran—marginalizes Europe’s position as a credible contributor to international security.
A durable negotiated settlement can only be reached if Ukraine’s Western backers are seen as reliable. Ultimately, Western actions and blatant abandonment of any pretense of being committed to genuine negotiations in the Middle East will harden Russian resolve in Europe.
With the Russian military on the advance and Kiev’s prospects looking bleaker by the day, Ukraine and its NATO partners may ultimately need to give up even more concessions than the Russians may have earlier been willing to accept had European leaders positioned themselves as honest brokers rather than as merely Washington’s junior partners.