Striking Without Europe:US-Israeli Offensive Against Iran and the Strategic Marginalization of Paris
Some crisis reveal a strategy. And others that reveal a hierarchy. The American-Israeli offensive against Iran (February 28, 2026) belongs to both categories—but, for Paris and for Europe, it is above all a scene of relegation.
Emmanuel Macron said it straight: “France was neither warned nor involved in the operation,” and he extended the observation to the European allies.
In the aftermath, Paris, Berlin, and London (E3) published a joint text stating that they did not participate in the strikes, while condemning the Iranian response and claiming to remain in contact with partners and allies.
Why this American choice?
The logic of operational secrecy, but especially a deteriorated transatlantic climate. Even if NATO remains an architecture, political intimacy is no longer automatic. President Macron, a symbol of an ‘autonomous’ and ‘normative’ Europe, embodies—in the eyes of Trump—the ally who comments, conditions, and moralizes. Keeping Paris at a distance then becomes a way of signifying, “The decision is made elsewhere.” This reveals a symbolic break in the Atlantic order.
The European reaction, too, is revealing: caution, calls for de-escalation, condemnation of the Iranian reprisals, and embarrassment over the initial act. Europe is therefore stuck in an uncomfortable equation: “Without strategic autonomy, there is no right of scrutiny.
The Iranian crisis is therefore not only a crisis in the Middle East. It is a mirror extended to Europe: either it acquires a strategic capacity that gives it a voice in tough decisions, or it will remain the indispensable ally to manage the consequences… and be dispensable at the time of deciding.
Europe is trapped between its security dependence on Washington and its multilateralist values. She cannot afford to break with the USA, but she is humiliated to be treated as a second-rate power.
