As negotiations between the United States and Iran continue within the sixty-day framework established by the memorandum of understanding, with the strait nominally reopened but operating at a fraction of pre-war traffic levels and Iran continuing to test the boundaries of the ceasefire through sporadic provocations, the European perspective on the conflict and its aftermath has received comparatively little attention in American media.
Eldar Mamedov, senior policy adviser at the European Policy Centre in Brussels and former adviser to members of the European Parliament on Middle Eastern affairs, joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to offer a European assessment of the war’s consequences and the diplomatic landscape that is emerging from it.
Mamedov said the dominant sentiment among European officials and foreign policy professionals is quiet relief that the active phase of the conflict appears to be winding down, combined with deep frustration at not having been consulted on a war that directly affected European energy security, economic stability, and the safety of European citizens in the region. He said the European Union was placed in a position of having to deal with the consequences of an American military campaign it had no voice in shaping, a dynamic that many European leaders experienced as fundamentally disrespectful of a partnership that is supposed to be the cornerstone of the Western alliance.
He said the energy dimension was and remains the most concrete European grievance. When the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed in the early weeks of the campaign, European natural gas prices spiked dramatically because LNG shipments from Qatar, which transit the strait, constitute a significant share of European energy imports, particularly since Europe weaned itself off Russian pipeline gas following the Ukraine invasion. He said European publics experienced direct economic pain from a war they did not support and were not asked about, and that this dynamic fed directly into the political difficulties facing pro-American governments across the continent while strengthening parties and movements that argue for European strategic autonomy.
On the question of NATO solidarity and Trump’s criticism that European allies failed to support the operation, Mamedov offered a perspective at odds with both the American administration’s rhetoric and the assessments offered by some American analysts. He said the reality is that most European governments did provide base access and logistical support despite having serious reservations about the campaign, precisely because they take the alliance seriously. What they did not do, and what they were never going to do, was provide public political endorsement of a war they considered unnecessary and poorly conceived. He said the distinction between operational cooperation and political endorsement is one that American commentators frequently collapse, and that the European governments providing the most substantial logistical support were often the same ones most publicly critical of the campaign.
On the proposed F-35 sale to Turkey, Mamedov said European opinion is deeply divided. He said there is a genuine strategic argument for keeping Turkey anchored in the Western alliance through weapons sales and technology sharing, but that Erdogan’s behavior, including the purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems that are fundamentally incompatible with NATO’s integrated air defense network, his military operations against Kurdish forces that the United States had armed and trained, and his increasingly authoritarian domestic governance, has eroded trust to the point where many European capitals would view the sale as rewarding bad behavior. He noted that the original suspension of Turkey from the F-35 program was specifically because the S-400 acquisition created an unacceptable intelligence risk, since Russian technicians operating the S-400 system could theoretically gather data on F-35 radar signatures and performance characteristics. He said that concern has not been resolved and simply selling the aircraft without addressing it would represent a significant concession to Ankara with no apparent reciprocal commitment.
On Iran’s internal situation, Mamedov cautioned against the assumption common in American policy circles that the regime is on the verge of collapse. He said European diplomats who have maintained channels with Iranian counterparts throughout the conflict report that the military campaign, while devastating to Iranian infrastructure and military capability, has had the paradoxical effect of consolidating domestic support for the regime among a segment of the population that was previously ambivalent. He compared it to the rally-around-the-flag effect observed in other countries under external military pressure, noting that bombing campaigns have historically produced this dynamic more often than they have produced regime change. He said the younger, more nationalistic cohort within the IRGC has gained influence precisely because the war validated their argument that the United States is an existential threat that will attack regardless of what concessions Iran makes, an argument that moderate and pragmatist factions within the regime have difficulty countering given what actually happened.
On the broader question of American credibility, Mamedov said the war and its aftermath have accelerated a trend that was already visible before Trump’s second term: a growing European conviction that the United States is no longer a reliable partner whose commitments can be trusted across administrations. He said the JCPOA experience, in which a Democratic administration negotiated a deal, a Republican administration withdrew from it, and the same Republican president who withdrew from it then launched a military campaign partly justified by the nuclear advancements Iran made after the withdrawal, is understood in European capitals as evidence that American foreign policy is now so thoroughly hostage to domestic political cycles that long-term strategic commitments are essentially meaningless. He said this perception is driving concrete policy changes in Europe, including accelerated defense spending, the development of independent European defense industrial capacity, and quiet diplomatic hedging toward China and other non-Western powers that are seen as more predictable partners even if they are less ideologically aligned.
He closed by noting that the European perspective is not one of anti-Americanism but of strategic realism. He said most European leaders genuinely want the American alliance to work and recognize that Europe cannot replace American security guarantees in the near term. But he said the gap between what the alliance promises and what it delivers has widened to the point where planning for a post-American or at least a less-American European security architecture is no longer considered defeatist but prudent, and that this shift, once completed, will be very difficult to reverse even under a future American administration that wants to rebuild the relationship.