Donald Trump stands accused of many things – narcissism, stealing state secrets, and falsifying business records come to mind.
Grand strategy is not usually on the list. That’s unlikely to change in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear installations over the weekend even though the strike could well be the most significant strategic move of his presidency.
It’s too soon to predict the short- or even the medium-term impact of Trump’s move. What is clear, however, is that America’s longstanding pledge to not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran is not just rhetoric. By dispatching B-2 bombers to destroy Iran’s nuclear bunkers over the weekend, Trump enshrined that promise into America’s foreign policy.
That should be welcome news to European leaders. Instead, it triggered a familiar cacophony of second-guessing, wails of protest about perceived violations of “international law” and pathetic pleas for diplomacy “to prevent further escalation".
That was the public response, at least. Behind closed doors, many European officials were no doubt grateful that Trump, as Germany’s Friedrich Merz might have put it, took care of Europe’s ‘dirty work’.
Make no mistake, alongside Israel and other countries in the Middle East, Europe is the most exposed to the Iranian threat for the simple reason that it is not far away. Though Iran’s ballistic missiles may not have the range to reach northern Europe yet, but it’s only a matter of time until they do.
Unfortunately, Europe, likely out of fear of reprisals, has had difficulty getting tough on Iran. Despite a preponderance of evidence that Iran’s corrupt and brutal regime couldn’t be trusted to shutter its nuclear programme, for example, Europe clung to the so-called JCPOA nuclear deal like a security blanket long after Trump exited the arrangement in 2018.
For a generation of European diplomats who spent the better part of their careers negotiating the ill-fated pact, the JCPOA took on a totemic quality that made acknowledging its collapse all but impossible.
Israel’s extraordinary success this month in defanging Iran – a country with a population nearly ten times the size of its own – offers final confirmation of the folly of the nuclear deal, which involved lifting sanctions on Tehran in return for a temporary pledge not to build a nuclear weapon.
By creating facts on the ground, Trump has made clear once and for all Iran won’t have nuclear weapons, full stop.
