The outbreak of the third Gulf war, triggered by the joint attack of the United States and Israel on the regime of the ayatollahs in Iran, has further accelerated the process of destabilization of the global order in multiple respects. First of all, this war marks yet another serious violation of international norms prohibiting the use of force between states, increasingly normalizing the law of the strongest and indirectly legitimizing the use of violence by authoritarian powers, starting with the regime of Vladimir Putin, still engaged in attempting to crush Ukrainian resistance and in projecting its neo-imperial ambitions across the rest of Europe.
Secondly, the attack on Iran deeply destabilizes the geopolitical balance of the entire Middle East region, triggering a dynamic of escalation that is rapidly extending beyond the initial boundaries of the conflict. Despite its military and technological inferiority, the Iranian regime has demonstrated remarkable resilience and a significant capacity for asymmetric action. Attacks against several neighboring countries — including Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — follow the logic of expanding the regional conflict spiral while increasing the political cost of the war for the actors involved.
The economic effects of the war risk being even more severe. The closure for over a month of the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial hub for the transit of energy supplies in the region — has already triggered a surge in global gas and oil prices, with cascading effects on industrial production, transport and inflation. In an international context already marked by structural fragilities and trade tensions, the war in Iran risks rapidly triggering a systemic crisis capable of affecting all economies worldwide, albeit in asymmetric ways.
The most troubling aspect of this war, however, is another: Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world, leading the main global military power, has managed to drag his country into a conflict without a real strategy — that is, without clearly defining the interests to be pursued and the objectives to be achieved. The result has been entanglement in a war with no credible exit strategy. The situation appears even more serious considering that the decision to attack Iran largely depended on external pressures, particularly from the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, interested in keeping the country in a permanent state of war in order to consolidate its own power.
After a month of conflict and a series of ultimatums aimed at obtaining Tehran’s unconditional surrender, the United States was forced to agree to a truce with the Iranian regime, which remained firmly in power despite the elimination of several top figures, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The clumsy attempt to disengage from the conflict, driven by fears over the war’s economic consequences and the awareness of being unable to prevail on the ground, once again confirms the unreliability and weakness of the United States, incapable of sustaining its own decisions over time. Thus, the decline of American power is confirmed: the United States has effectively abdicated its role as guarantor of the global order, acting in a reactive and disorderly manner, according to a logic that appears both self-defeating and deeply destabilizing for the rest of the world. Moreover, the attack on Iran was decided by the President without Congressional authorization, in open disregard of constitutional norms meant to limit executive power — a further sign of the illiberal drift characterizing today’s America under Donald Trump.
From this decline, powers such as China — which sees its Iranian ally survive the attack of the American superpower — and Russia — which seeks to regain momentum in the Ukrainian conflict while benefiting from rising energy prices — can only benefit.
What about Europe? In this dramatic scenario, both the Union and its Member States have remained powerless and disoriented, trapped by their external dependencies — starting with energy and defense — and paralyzed by persistent internal divisions. This weakness has become evident in the growing nervousness of national governments: alarmed by the impact of the conflict on households’ purchasing power and economic growth prospects, many leaders have promoted unilateral initiatives, organizing missions to the Gulf to secure preferential energy supplies and resorting to stopgap measures such as fuel tax cuts and the preparation of gas and kerosene rationing plans.
The European Union has done no better: unable to act on the causes of the conflict, and lacking a common foreign and energy policy, EU institutions have not even managed to agree on minimal measures, such as suspending the ETS system for the companies most affected by rising energy costs or introducing a common tax on energy windfall profits. In this context, most governments have done little more than hope, paradoxically, that the rising cost of the war for American households would push Trump to accept a truce capable of stabilizing global energy supplies. It is a stark image of European weakness: relying on the goodwill of one’s executioner instead of taking steps to free oneself.
Fortunately, not everyone thinks this way. At this crucial moment, many voices in the public debate are calling for overcoming the impasse and launching a political initiative that would mark the first step toward creating genuine strategic autonomy for the Union.
The goal is to build true European sovereignty, and the reforms needed to achieve it are well known. In the immediate term, several urgent measures must be implemented: the development of a European energy policy based on joint investments in renewables and nuclear power, joint purchasing of energy products, and the development of integrated infrastructure; the completion of the capital markets union and the banking union; and the strengthening of the European defense industry.
At the same time, decisive institutional reforms are essential: extending qualified majority voting in foreign and fiscal policy in order to equip the Union with real decision-making capacity and financial autonomy. This is the “pragmatic federalism” repeatedly invoked by Mario Draghi, which could serve as the political project of reference for progressive forces determined to oppose European decline and a future of subordination to authoritarian powers.
Time is running out, but not all is lost: Europe can regain its bearings if progressive political forces recognize that the true strategic objective is the revival of European political integration, moving toward the creation of a federal core of power autonomous from the Member States. Several actors can initiate this process: the most forward-looking governments, the European Commission, or the Parliament itself. A strong political initiative signalling the will to finally act as a united power would not only help contain external pressure from the United States and Russia, but also counter the rise of anti-European and Eurosceptic forces that threaten the Union from within.