Europe and the 2026 Iran war
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Europe and the 2026 Iran war describes the collapse of allied confidence that the economist Richard D. Wolff reported to John Kiriakou in April 2026, a month or so into the fighting.

Not told, then asked for help

The European governments, in Wolff's account, learned of the attack when everyone else did: "The Europeans had not been told by the United States about the attack. They had not been warned. They had not had time to prepare." They had assumed the United States would coordinate the war with them, and Mr Trump did not.

The sequence that followed is the one Wolff treats as decisive. Halfway through the war Donald Trump asked the Europeans for help and "they basically said no." The single exception he identified was British: "The British let them use the base in Cyprus, but mostly did not" support the effort. Trump then attacked the Europeans publicly, "furious that they weren't helping him, utterly oblivious to the reason why, which they told him."

"NATO is dead"

Wolff's summary of European feeling was unhedged: "the anger, the bitterness of the Europeans against the United States cannot be over stressed." His verdict on the alliance followed directly, "NATO is dead, the alliance is dead, and the blame for it is 100% on the US. That's the view in Europe." He set it alongside the tariff dispute of the previous year as the second time Trump had declined to sit down with them.

What made the failure to warn more than a diplomatic slight, in his telling, was range. The Iranian missiles that damaged American bases in the Gulf and penetrated Israeli air defences could travel hundreds of kilometres, and "those missiles could go to Europe. They could hit European cities." To be exposed to a war that way without having been consulted was, he said, "driving them crazy with anger and bitterness at being treated in this way. And America are going to have to deal with that for years to come."

The domestic cost to European leaders

Wolff attached a political consequence to it. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany were polling "between 10 and 20%," were "not going to be in power much longer," and what was driving them out was "a popular opinion that blames them for being lackeys of Mr. Trump."

The immediate material consequence for Europe was fuel: see Europe's 2026 jet fuel crisis.

See also

- 2026 Iran war
- Europe's 2026 jet fuel crisis
- Richard D. Wolff
- Article 5, invoked once
- Europe without Russian gas
- John Kiriakou
