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Source: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/03/31/europe-iran-war-us-israel-00852813
Why Europe Is Wrong to Think Iran Is "Not Our War"
(Politico) Mathias Dopfner - Commentators in Europe talking about Iran often say, "This is not our war." Of course it is our war. It is far more our war than America's. The infiltration of European societies by Islamist networks is further advanced and more acute here than in America. If the war in Iran is not a European matter, then the war in Ukraine is not an American one. Then Europeans should solve it themselves in the future, and alone. Ukraine and the Russian aggressor in Moscow are much farther from Washington than the mullahs and their terror are from Berlin or Paris. In a situation this critical, in which the Americans are once again pulling Europe's chestnuts out of the fire, it would be better to stand together. Europe shouldn't stab the American government in the back as it pursues these efforts. Future American governments will remember this withdrawal of solidarity. If we have to cope in the future on our own with both the fight against the Islamism directed from Tehran and the imperial aggression emanating from Moscow, Europe will be overwhelmed. The transatlantic community of shared interests has sustained and protected us for 80 years. At the truly decisive hour, the "we" always prevailed. Now Europe says: Not me. The American government is finally trying to weaken the mullahs' reign of terror by force of arms. And that is long overdue. For more than four and a half decades, Iran's Revolutionary Guards have terrorized the Free World. Their goal is not just the destruction of Israel and all Jews, but the destruction of the liberal democracy they despise precisely because it is free. Our way of life. Our security. Our interests. Together with its terror networks, from Hamas to Hizbullah to the Houthis, the mullah dictatorship is perhaps the most effective and cruel source of terror in the world. They operate in European societies in particular, deliberately spreading hatred and violence in ways that erode our liberal constitutional order and strengthen extremist movements. The aggressor in Iran - one that poses an existential danger to us - has for years been systematically pursuing nuclear weapons. Nothing has so far been able to stop it. It was in our European interest that America and Israel have finally taken joint action to weaken the Iranian regime. Iran has been set back by years. We have gained time. Now Europe needs to stand with the U.S. to make use of it. The writer is chair and CEO of Axel Springer, Politico's parent company.