The Lesser Evil in a Dangerous World

Europe’s selective outrage over Iran eludes the harder question of whether it can afford to ignore a nuclear-armed revolutionary regime.

For 47 years the rulers of Iran have proclaimed America their sworn enemy. The chant of “Death to America” has echoed from Tehran’s streets and pulpits since the revolution of 1979. During those same decades, American citizens have repeatedly found themselves the targets of violence - from Beirut to Nairobi - carried out either directly by Iranian agents or by the regime’s proxies. That history is worth recalling when the debate in Europe turns, once again, to the supposed violation of international law by the United States.

I do not pretend that the Americans act out of charity. Great powers rarely do. But the indignation now sweeping through parts of Europe strikes me as strangely selective. Many who today invoke international law did not seem especially troubled during the past four decades while Iran funded militias, destabilised neighbours and sponsored attacks on civilians across the Middle East and beyond.

The sudden rediscovery of legal principle has therefore left me uneasy. Of course, there are reasons to fear the consequences of confrontation with Iran. One of them is the possibility that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might tighten its grip on the state. The Guards are not merely a military force but an economic and political empire, resembling, in scale and influence, the old SS corporate complex in Nazi Germany. Their ascendancy would not be a reassuring prospect for anyone who hopes for a freer Iran.

Yet there is another possibility that troubles me more: the prospect of such a regime possessing nuclear warheads and the ballistic capability to deliver them. Europeans, I fear, underestimate how quickly political resolve can crumble under nuclear blackmail. Our own political leadership has often shown a softness when confronted by Islamist pressure. One wonders how that softness would manifest itself if it were backed by nuclear weapons.

In the midst of this uncomfortable reality, European politicians and commentators have chosen this moment to rediscover their devotion to international law. Spanish socialists, long sympathetic to the Iranian regime, have invoked it. Britain’s Keir Starmer, with an eye to Muslim votes, has done the same. Their arguments rest on the premise that the Americans and Israelis are acting recklessly, trampling on legal norms.

Brazen Violation

But for nearly half a century the Iranian leadership itself has displayed little interest in such norms. It has nonetheless managed, with Chinese support, to secure positions of influence in the very international institutions now invoked against its adversaries. Iran sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council. Francesca Albanese has been installed as UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine. With the help of sympathetic diplomats - among them Germany’s long-time ambassador to the UN, Christoph Heusgen - Israel has been condemned dozens of times in UN forums.

All this passed with remarkably little outrage from Europe’s newly minted guardians of international law.

The Americans and Israelis, it is true, are pursuing their own calculations. They are not altruists. But their actions may nonetheless produce consequences that serve the wider West. Preventing the consolidation of a nuclear-armed revolutionary regime in Tehran would hardly be a trivial achievement.

Yes, everything could go wrong. Wars have a way of spiralling beyond the intentions of those who start them. But what exactly is the alternative? Should the West simply wait until the Iranian leadership completes its military projects and presents the world with a new reality?

Recent events inside Iran itself offer a reminder of the nature of the regime in question. The world has watched as women who refuse to wear the chador are beaten, arrested or killed. A government that treats its own citizens in this fashion is unlikely to feel bound by rules when dealing with those it considers ‘infidels.’

It is fashionable in Europe to believe that moral equivalence explains every conflict. But there are, in fact, real forces of barbarism in the world. Not everyone who opposes them is virtuous; neither Donald Trump nor Benjamin Netanyahu qualifies as a saint. Yet when the alternative is catastrophe, the ‘lesser evil’ may be good enough.

For the moment, Europeans have not paid the price of this confrontation. In Tel Aviv, civilians already rush to shelters multiple times a day. In Tehran the authorities restrict communications so tightly that people struggle to warn relatives or even speak with loved ones during attacks.

Europe’s own reckoning may still come. Angela Merkel’s policies, among others, have left Germany and much of the continent vulnerable to the very networks and ideologies nurtured by Tehran. If violence eventually erupts here as well, it will not be the fault of the Americans. It will be the harvest of hatreds sown over decades by extremists inspired by figures such as Mohammed Amin al-Husseini and others who turned anti-Western resentment into a global ideology.

Forestalling Danger

Seen in that context, the current conflict is about preventing the emergence of an increasingly dangerous regime that has been arming itself with ever more sophisticated weapons. Among them are hypersonic missiles supplied or developed with Chinese assistance that are capable of threatening American aircraft carriers and other strategic assets.

Iran was therefore on the verge of becoming something more serious than a regional nuisance. It was evolving into a direct strategic threat.

Yet many critics prefer to speak only of American power politics. That accusation is incomplete.

History offers perspective here. The Western-backed overthrow of Iran’s prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953 was indeed a grave mistake. It discredited Western rhetoric about democracy and fuelled grievances that still echo today. But it occurred in a world very different from our own: the same year witnessed the East German uprising crushed by hundreds of Soviet tanks and the bloody stalemate of the Korean War. The Soviet-aligned Tudeh Party was also active in Iran at the time.

None of this absolves the West of responsibility. But it does complicate the simplified narrative often invoked today.

Geopolitics rarely leaves room for purity. The push to remove Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro was also an attempt to limit the expansion of Chinese influence in the Americas. Likewise, the effort to dismantle Iran’s ‘ring of fire’ reflects a strategic calculation that such a network threatens regional stability and the prospects for agreements such as the Abraham Accords.

China, Russia and Iran pursue precisely the same logic. Their leaders openly describe the West and above all the United States—as their principal adversary. International law seldom restrains them.

Xi Jinping has made no secret of his ambitions. By 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic, China intends to achieve global supremacy. Russia’s Vladimir Putin pursues his own vision of restored imperial influence in Ukraine. Neither project leaves much room for the liberal international order Europeans claim to cherish.

Shedding Restraint

Ironically, during the past two decades the United States itself often appeared reluctant to defend that order. Successive administrations favoured diplomacy, restraint and, in many cases, appeasement.

Donald Trump’s approach represents a sharp departure from that pattern. His aim is to restore America’s strategic position and reverse what he regards as the errors of the Bush and Obama years. He does not always act with diplomatic finesse. But he does pursue a systematic strategy that attempts to push back against adversaries without crossing the threshold of global war.

Consider the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran were able to dominate that chokepoint while selling the vast majority of its oil to China at discounted prices in exchange for yuan, the strategic balance would shift dramatically. Add nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles to that equation and the consequences for Europe would be severe.

In such a scenario, Europeans might discover that their moral sermons offer little protection. So the question becomes unavoidable: which is the lesser evil? Pre-emptive submission to hostile powers, or the effort to resist them?

Over the past seventy years the trajectories of North and South Korea, or of East and West Germany, have diverged dramatically. One side prospered within the Western orbit; the other languished under authoritarian systems.

Given that choice, I know where I prefer to live.

(The author is an historian and novelist. Views personal.)