How Europe Lost the US-Iran War
Europe, so close and so weak, presents an increasingly tempting target for American predation.
Editor’s note: Douglas Rooney is a writer and educator working in Beijing. He writes about China and politics mostly. The article reflects the author’s opinions and not necessarily the views of China Up Close.
Europe has performed the rather remarkable feat of losing the US-Iran War despite not formally participating. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that the war will place a burden on the European economy “as heavy as we recently experienced during the Covid pandemic or at the start of the Ukraine war.” EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen has advised Europeans to curb transportation use to save fuel. Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, warned the effects are “probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment.” The very real possibility of stagflation hangs across the economy as projected growth figures plunge and fuel protests spread.
Europe once more sleepwalks into an economic and political crisis, and this time it may not be able to find an exit.
At first glance, Europe appears to be in a better position than most to weather the economic storm caused by American and Israeli actions in the Middle East: while a substantial quantity of Europe’s fertilizer comes from the region, just 6 percent of its crude oil and under 10 percent of its natural gas pass through the Strait of Hormuz. However, Asian markets, which receive up to 80% of their supply from the Gulf, simply outbid Europe for the remaining supply. The emerging economic crisis, then, is symbolic of Europe’s dwindling clout in the global economy.
Yet, more than just another economic shock, this moment has come as an existential crisis for Europe’s image of itself and its place in the world. The latest war has punctured two of the most persistent myths of post-WW2 Europe: that the US will keep Europeans safe, and that this safety was offered for purely altruistic reasons.
First, let us deal with the faltering American security apparatus.
Future historians may look back on the 2026 US-Iran War as the beginning of the end of the American Empire. Already in our own time, some are likening the conflict to the Suez Crisis - the 1956 British invasion of Egypt (aided, as the US is today, by Israel). When the British were forced into a humiliating withdrawal, it destroyed what was left of British military prestige - and along with it British hopes of maintaining Great Power status.
The Iranians are hardly the first people to sap the American Empire’s will to fight. From Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, the histories of the Cold War and Global War on Terror are littered with battlefields which the Americans were forced to abandon in the face of fierce opposition. Yet, despite winning precious few wars, the myth of American military invincibility has endured. Americans across the political spectrum will tell you that their army could have won these wars if only they had “taken the gloves off”. In this telling, it was the US commitment to liberal (read civilized) values that prevented total victory. The Americans could have defeated the Taliban at any point during the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, it is just that the Pentagon is such nice guys, they didn’t want to. Obviously absurd and transparently racist, the myth gave comfort to a certain type of American: we might not have healthcare, they tell themselves, but at least our boys can whip your boys in a fight.
The Trump administration came into power believing the liberal propaganda, and so, supposing that abandoning all “woke” military doctrines would allow for easy victory, very publicly took the gloves off. On social media and in a press conference, Trump and his officials announced Iran would be sent back to the Stone Age, that this was a war in which no quarter would be given, and that American military force would bring an end to Iranian civilization. Donald Trump threw the entire might of the American war machine at Iran, assassinating their leadership, destroying infrastructure, and massacring civilians. Iran remains standing. The myth of US military dominance does not.
Why a historic humiliation for American hard power is so disastrous for Europe may be difficult to comprehend if you are not European, but it comes down to something called the American Security Umbrella. During the Cold War, much of Europe outsourced security to the US military-industrial complex. To simplify somewhat, the US took over much of the security of the continent, and this gave Europe the time and resources to focus on building our much vaunted social democratic welfare states (or at least that is what we told ourselves). What the Americans got out of the arrangement was never very clearly stated because what they got was control of the European continent in every area that mattered.
Learning, as we did recently, that the US security infrastructure is not fit to fight a 21st-century war would be bad enough, but watching the US abandon the Gulf States (an area that exists under the same security umbrella) to their fate as soon as the going got tough must have given European leaders heart palpitations.
Worse was to come, for, unable to bring an adequate resolution to the conflict with Iran, Trump is turning once more to an easier and more pliant target: Europe.
He has already implied that he holds Europe responsible for American humiliation in the Strait of Hormuz. He has claimed, in a rambling press conference, that “they [Europe] must grab it [the Strait of Hormuz] and cherish it. They could do it so easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so depend on.” Later, Trump said in an interview “they haven’t been friends when we needed them...we’ve never asked them for much… it’s a one-way street.” Throughout the war Trump has also done nothing to hide his vitriolic displeasure at European leaders, and has threatened to withdraw American security guarantees from the continent completely.
Now, as it becomes increasingly clear the easy wins Trump loves will not be found in the Middle East, Washington’s sights return to Greenland, with Trump declaring on Truth Social “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN...REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary-General, rather laconically, has called these developments a “disappointment.”
Plans are afoot to build European independence - the EU’s “ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030“ plan aims to mobilize €800 billion by the end of the decade. However, the continent is starting with severely degraded military capacity (the British Army, for example, currently has more horses than tanks), and a truly independent rearmament policy would require an industrial base that decades of off-shoring means Europe just doesn’t have. Despite the changing mood at the grassroots (a recent poll found that everyday people view the US as one of the greatest threats to Europe), there is a deep ideological reluctance among the current crop of European leaders to take the steps required to chart a truly independent path forward. When, for example, Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, called for the normalization of relations with Russia to regain access to cheap energy, he was roundly rebuked from figures across the EU and within his own government. For the Europeans to become a pole in the emerging multipolar world (or even just to secure their independence from an increasingly predatory United States) they would require both the means and the will to do it - and currently they lack both.
For those for eyes to see the US military and security presence on the continent was always about an insidious need to control rather than a benevolent desire to protect European social democracy (read, as just one historic example, about the Cold War Operation Gladio). But, by making a show of consulting with their supposed allies, and occasionally allowing symbolic dissent, previous American presidents gave European elites what they needed to legitimize the process to their own people - that is to say they gave Europe plausible deniability. Trump, in making the nature of US Empire explicit and turning its gaze upon Greenland, has ensured that even the most committed European Atlanticist can no longer plausibly maintain the myth of American benevolence. And yet, despite all that, European elites seem psychologically incapable of contemplating a serious break with the United States.
The war in Iran has weakened Europe economically, but, and perhaps more importantly, it has wounded America politically. And a wounded predator, sensing death, is much more dangerous. Europe, so close and so weak, presents an increasingly tempting target for American predation.
Long used to viewing themselves as the cockpit of human civilization, the nations of Europe have, in subordinating themselves to American power, moved from the subjects of history to its objects. They cannot act, only be acted upon. After centuries of colonialism and decades of aiding and abetting US imperialism there is unlikely to be much sympathy in the emerging power centers of the Global South as Europeans slowly awaken to their new reality.
About the Author
Douglas Rooney: Writer and educator working in Beijing. Writing about China and politics mostly.
Doug’s X page: @doug_rooney
Page Editor: Jin Yulin
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This is a superbly written, cutting analysis of the crumbling Imperial Axis.
Come on!! They are not that stupid -- EU is a project to destroy Europe and its people !! When you think like that, everything they do makes sense --
I was however surprised that they actually did not jump and got ass fucked by Yankeestan into joining the war on Iran to kill more Europeans !!
The WEF and the globalists are ordering EU to fuck us all over - the reason why we seem weak is because these parasites want to destroy us and maybe they have startet to realise that European peoples are fed up with them and dont want to fight for the very retards that has destroyed our lives!!
Plus their evil agenda have not turned on them self, they can kiss a war with Russia goodbye even though they love to keep the fear porn alive to sell over priced crap we dont need! And we probably would not have enough fuel to move an army to Iran anyway!! We certainly do not have the production to make anything of quantity to match Russia or China !!
They put them self checkmate and i love it!!
Everything that has happend i have been telling people for over a decade!!