To many countries, Western backing of Israel’s attack on Iran is more evidence of the liberal world order’s humbug.
As G-7 leaders wrap up their annual meeting, they should contemplate how their full-throated support for Israel against Iran will play in the Global South. Western policies and inconsistencies can be leveraged by nations such as Russia and China to advance their own international agendas.
Preempting a Nuclear Threat?
Western leaders should uphold international norms and demand transparency before endorsing military action. Nuclear experts are questioning Israel’s claims that Tehran has begun an atomic weapons program on top of its uranium enrichment program. Even if Iran has “the capacity to produce sufficient fissile material required for several nuclear bombs within days,” it would take “months, possibly up to a year,” according to one expert quoted in The Financial Times, to convert that material into a deliverable nuclear weapon.
In other words, there was no imminent threat. How does a nuclear-armed Israel fear for its defense against an Iran that has yet to develop nuclear weapons? While it may be a threshold state, many experts—including US intelligence reports—question Israel’s claim that Iran had begun a weaponization program. Yet, Western leaders appear to be following Israel in jumping to a conclusion.
At least before the invasion of Iraq, the United States and the United Kingdom sought to get UN Security Council approval even though the intelligence rationale was faulty and, in some cases, fabricated. A day after President John F Kennedy began interdicting Soviet missile deliveries to Cuba, the administration made its case at the Security Council, showing irrefutable surveillance photographs taken by a U-2 spy plane that the Soviet Union was placing missiles in Cuba.
Israel and President Donald Trump despise the UN, but if the West hopes that UN legitimacy and relevance persist, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu should be called to make his case. One would think that Europeans who claim to believe in international law would insist on this.
It is too early to tell whether Israel will have destroyed enough of Iran’s nuclear capability to end or significantly delay any future weaponization by Tehran. As of late Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has indicated that “Iran’s key nuclear sites have not suffered any further damage since Friday, the first day of Israel’s attack on the country,” and those attacks only destroyed above-ground buildings at Natanz.
However, the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi believes it is likely that “the roughly 15,000 centrifuges operating at Iran’s biggest uranium enrichment plant at Natanz were badly damaged or destroyed because of a power cut caused by an Israeli strike.”
We do not yet know whether Trump will intervene with bunker-buster bombs to destroy the deeply buried Fordow nuclear site. David Albright, an expert from the Institute for Science and International Security, has said that “if Fordow alone remained intact and Iran had access to its stock of 60 percent-enriched uranium, it may be possible to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for ‘nine nuclear weapons by the end of the first month.’”
Even with more destruction, it is difficult to force an unlearning process on a country that has mastered enrichment. Israel may have instead convinced Tehran to go ahead, and in the coming months or years, we could find out that they have produced several nuclear bombs.
Pointing out more immediate threats, Rafael Grossi has warned that “any military action that jeopardizes the safety and security of nuclear facilities risks grave consequences for the people of Iran, the region, and beyond.”
Many international jurists have also condemned Israeli attacks. For instance, UK law professor Marco Milanovic wrote that “unless Israel is able to provide substantially more compelling evidence than is currently publicly available, it cannot reasonably be argued that Iran would imminently attack Israel, or that using force was the only option to stop that attack.”
Moreover, regional Arab leaders, including Saudi Arabia, fearing a wider regional conflict, condemned the Israeli attack and, in the case of Riyadh, had been urging Trump to restrain Netanyahu from attacking Iran.
Trump the Peacemaker?
The Trump Administration initially responded with restraint. The first official reaction came from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who issued a statement soon after the Israeli strikes, asserting that “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.” Rubio also cautioned: “Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”
Trump’s stance has varied from supporting diplomatic talks to now backing Israel’s war on Iran, likely influenced by the Pentagon. NBC News reports that by June 9, after several conversations with Netanyahu, Trump believed Israel was set to strike and began preparing to support it.
The Pentagon instructed European Command to deploy a Navy destroyer near Israel for defense against potential counterattacks from Tehran, joining two additional destroyers and a carrier strike group already stationed in the area.
Trump’s shift from claiming to be an anti-war president seeking diplomatic solutions to giving Israel a “green light” is perhaps understandable, given that US presidents since George HW Bush have struggled to oppose Israeli policies. The NBC News report suggests that the change in Trump’s position was influenced by his desire to avoid being the president during whose term Iran obtained a nuclear weapon. This reasoning is similar to the rationale behind George W Bush’s decision to launch the 2003 war with Iraq.
While Europeans, especially Germans, at the time were not convinced and opposed Bush’s invasion of Iraq, they are giving Netanyahu carte blanche to go beyond surgical attacks against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Netanyahu is likely hoping that Iran’s retaliation against Israel convinces Trump to go a step further and join Israel in taking out the underground facilities that experts believe Israel lacks the capabilities to destroy.
Saudi and UAE sources, according to The Wall Street Journal, indicate, however, that Iran could be open to a ceasefire, not closing the Strait of Hormuz, or threatening Saudi oil facilities. These actions would send oil prices skyrocketing and force a strong reaction from Trump. Without a clear reason, Trump also risks dividing his MAGA base by involving the US in a prolonged military conflict in the Middle East.
UN and International Law
While Western nations, the G-7 signatories in particular, are also worried about the war’s wider “implications for international energy markets” and express their willingness “to coordinate, including with like-minded partners, to safeguard market stability,” they are less concerned about holding Israel accountable for actions against international law.
Leaders from France, Britain, and Germany back Israel’s war against Iran, overlooking the humanitarian suffering that could occur with Israeli threats to “burn” Tehran, redolent of what has already happened in Gaza. Moreover, if they fail to apply the same standards to Israeli attacks as it does to Russian ones against Ukrainian civilians, the EU is undermining its credibility as a normative power and risks further alienating countries in the Global South.
On June 13, French, British, and German leaders supported Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of what they see as an existential threat: the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. And then not settling for just a public statement, they all individually called Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has accused along with former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant of committing “crimes against humanity for intentionally depriving Gazans of food and directing attacks against civilians” to express their support. All three European countries are ICC members.
The French paper of record, Le Monde, termed European leaders’ eagerness to show their support “paradoxical” despite Europe’s well-known preference for diplomacy over war. Other media, such as Responsible Statecraft, were more explicit: “In their hypocrisy over Israel, EU elites once again expose the rotting corpse of the so-called ‘rules based order.’”
The G7 Context and the EU’s Framing of Threats
The final G-7 communique published on June 16 left out language of an earlier draft that had called for both Iran and Israel “to show restraint,” which Trump refused to back. Instead, the final communique, which all the G7 have signed, supports Israel’s right to self-defense and calls Iran the primary source of regional instability. It also states Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and urges the Iranian crisis resolution to lead to wider de-escalation in the Middle East, including a Gaza ceasefire.
At a G7 summit news conference in Alberta, Canada, Ursula von der Leyen may have unintentionally given away the game. A key moment came when the highest European official reportedly stated that “the same type of Iranian-designed and -made drones and ballistic missiles are indiscriminately hitting cities in Ukraine and in Israel,” concluding that “these threats need to be addressed together.”
This framing suggests a strategic convergence: Iran’s military support for Russia in Ukraine and its backing of anti-Israel actors (like Hezbollah and Hamas) are seen as part of a broader destabilizing agenda. By linking these theaters, the EU and its allies appear to be crafting a unified threat perception—one that justifies closer alignment with Israel, not necessarily out of ideological affinity, but due to shared adversaries.
The convergence of Iranian drone threats in both Ukraine and Israel provides a strategic rationale for the EU to support Israel more openly. However, this does not necessarily reflect a principled endorsement of Israeli policies. Rather, it may be a case of geopolitical triage: prioritizing containment of Iran as a common threat vector.
Global Perception of Western Support for Israel
While the EU may be aligning more closely with Israel due to Iran’s role in Ukraine, such a move risks reinforcing perceptions of hypocrisy, especially among non-Western actors who view the West’s support for Israel as selective moralism. In fact, the West’s support for Israel could lead other countries, especially in the Global South, to view once again Western values as hypocritical.
The West keeps making the same mistakes. The EU acknowledged it should have involved Global South countries in its sanctions against Russia for the Ukraine war. Josep Borrell, the EU’s former high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, admitted that the West exhibits “double standards.”As past examples of Western hypocrisy, Borrell cited international law, the Russia-Ukraine-NATO war, Israel’s bombing of Gaza, the US-led invasion of Iraq, and climate change.
China and Russia as Arbiters in a New World Order?
While China has been hypocritical in its support for Ukraine as well, it took the higher road and condemned Israel’s attack on Iran, offering to act as a mediator. Russia, which also dislikes the idea of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, has offered a muted reaction to the attacks, seeking via Trump and the two belligerents to play a peacemaker role. Worried about the broader global impacts, many Global South countries have condemned the Israeli attacks. Still, even when they have not, such as India and Kenya, they have called for restraint and enhanced diplomatic efforts, particularly at the UN, to defuse the conflict.
At a time when even some Western-friendly Global South countries are joining or applying to join the BRICS, which Russia and China hope will become an alternative to the Western-created global institutions, the Western “go-ahead” to Israel seems particularly ill-advised. For many in the non-West, it’s proof that the West, including Israel, is the true revisionist of the global order, seeding conflicts and trying to destroy anyone who doesn’t automatically align with it.
About the Authors: Mathew Burrows and Josef Braml
Dr. Mathew Burrows is the Counselor to the Executive Office of Stimson Center and has had a distinguished career in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Dr. Josef Braml is the Secretary General of the German Group and the European Director of the Trilateral Commission—an influential global platform for dialogue between America, Europe, and Asia.
Both are authors of the recently published book World To Come: The Return of Trump and The End of the Old Order.
Image: mhlotfi / Shutterstock.com.
