The European Union has placed a huge bet on Iran coming out on top in its war with the United States and Israel.
In all but name, the big countries in Europe have chosen Iran, and to a great extent China, as their preferred winners. They have spoken about closer relations with China, barred the US from using bases and even airspace, and are now siding with Iran in its negotiations with the United States, particularly in its demand that Hezbollah be left alone.
The thing is, aside from perhaps Turkey and Iran, no country in the Middle East is happy with their choices.
🚩France’s exclusion from the Washington Israeli-Lebanese talks should have been a diplomatic scandal, a historic ally locked out of the most significant Lebanon negotiation in thirty years. But Beirut didn’t protest, didn’t lobby for French inclusion, and didn’t even notice.… https://t.co/DrlklMThpA
— Bechara Gerges (@BecharaGerges) April 14, 2026
France’s exclusion from the Washington Israeli-Lebanese talks should have been a diplomatic scandal, a historic ally locked out of the most significant Lebanon negotiation in thirty years. But Beirut didn’t protest, didn’t lobby for French inclusion, and didn’t even notice. That silence is the real verdict.
France spent decades posturing as Lebanon’s guardian, hosting summits, drafting frameworks, and performing concern from the chandeliered rooms of the Élysée, while Hezbollah’s arsenal swelled from fifteen thousand rockets to two hundred thousand under the watch of French UNIFIL troops who enforced nothing.
Macron proposed Paris as the venue for these very talks, drafted a recognition plan, and personally called Aoun, Salam, and Berri, and previously Mikati, to choreograph a French-led diplomatic triumph.
Today, Lebanon and Israel are sitting across from each other at the State Department in Washington, brokered by Marco Rubio and mediated by the American Ambassador to Beirut, Michel Issa, who is of Lebanese origin and remains a Lebanese.
France was not just sidelined, it was rendered irrelevant by its own record of performing diplomacy without producing a single enforceable outcome. The bridge Macron wanted to claim credit for was built by others, and the cruelest part isn’t that France was excluded, it’s that nobody in Beirut objected.
As I wrote the other day, the Lebanese government rather tersely told the Europeans to butt out of its affairs, despite the common (but false) belief that Israel was waging war on Lebanon. The Lebanese knew better: the enemy was Iran, and Hezbollah was its proxy. And they know that Europe is in hock to Iran.
No worries then. The US-Iran ceasefire can proceed without any condition related to the Israeli fighting in Lebanon, which after all is an ostensibly sovereign state on the other side of Asia, contra what the Brits, French, Australians, and Iranians have been saying. https://t.co/4EQkvH1KDQ
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) April 9, 2026
There's a simple reason for that. Far from siding with Lebanon, all those European countries are protecting Iran's interest in RULING Lebanon through its proxy Hezbollah. In fact, Israel's strikes in Beirut were aimed at decapitating Hezbollah right before the terrorists intended to stage a coup, actually saving the Lebanese regime from being ousted and replaced.
If France had its way, Hezbollah would be running Lebanon today.
🇺🇸🇱🇧 Rubio just did something genuinely historic. Israel and Lebanon face to face in Washington for the first time since 1983, and he's the one who made it happen.
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 14, 2026
His framing was sharp: "The Lebanese people are victims of Hezbollah. The Lebanese people are victims of Iranian… https://t.co/locPZ5hVdR pic.twitter.com/DslBsOQmJS
Rubio just did something genuinely historic. Israel and Lebanon face to face in Washington for the first time since 1983, and he's the one who made it happen.
His framing was sharp: "The Lebanese people are victims of Hezbollah. The Lebanese people are victims of Iranian aggression."
Not anti-Lebanon. Anti-Hezbollah. That distinction matters enormously for what comes next.
"This is a process, not an event."
That's the most honest thing anyone has said in a negotiating room in weeks.
Most people don't seem to realize that European countries, through the United Nations, have been defending Hezbollah. Not officially, of course, but the United Nations' "peacekeepers" were given the mandate to demilitarize Southern Lebanon, but instead they allowed the terrorists to stockpile hundreds of thousands of rockets and fire them at Northern Israel.
Europe and the United Nations failed, just as they have failed to contain Iran. Instead, they prop up the bad guys.
Look at all these western countries nominating Iran to sit on a UN Committee for women's rights, human rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention.
— Billboard Chris 🌎 (@BillboardChris) April 10, 2026
Canada, UK, Australia, France, Spain, Germany, Norway … https://t.co/Zd1f7ROjOZ
The UN, with the blessing of European Union countries, just put Iran on the Human Rights Council. This, right after the massacres in the streets of Tehran.
You can't make it up.
Oh come on...surely people aren't falling for this virtue signalling...it's Trump and the US military working to try and reopen the Strait of Hormuz
— Gummi (@gummibear737) April 14, 2026
So if the straight reopens, Starmer/Macron swoop in and take credit
If it remains closed, they blame Trump
How courageous... https://t.co/GzB2K65auL
Every Gulf Cooperation Council country has been keeping score because they all know that by choosing Iran, the Eurowienies are choosing the wrong side of the war. Nobody wants Iran gone more than the GCC countries.
So Lebanon has turned its back on France, which has always considered itself its patron. Beirut, after all, was once known as the "Paris of the Middle East," and the ties ran deep.
"We certainly don’t want the French anywhere near these negotiations; we’d like to keep them as far away as possible from pretty much everything- particularly peace negotiations" says Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter to i24NEWS' @Mike_Wagenheim https://t.co/vVqgbPkByV pic.twitter.com/9bseEkp5o1
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) April 14, 2026
Instead, they are sitting down with the United States and Israel, of all countries, whom they trust more than the European Union and its members.
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in China:
— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 14, 2026
We are living through times of change; the international order that once prevailed is being undermined by significant actors.
There are those who choose to deny reality. We prefer to focus our efforts on reforming this… pic.twitter.com/Z7CB2fQ6oT
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in China:We are living through times of change; the international order that once prevailed is being undermined by significant actors. There are those who choose to deny reality. We prefer to focus our efforts on reforming this international order.
And because Europe has mortgaged its future to the gods of climate change and Net Zero, it has alienated all its most important trading partners, especially in energy. It is in a proxy war with Russia, has ticked off its Middle East suppliers, and is now utterly dependent on the United States.
Do our Spanish friends and allies really understand what they are calling for? https://t.co/NVcOsJF25a
— Marko Mihkelson 🇪🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@markomihkelson) April 14, 2026
Turning to China is a pretty weak move. China is replacing European manufacturers and has no oil to speak of.
Spain's Pedro Sánchez in China- “I firmly believe it is in the interest of both Spain and Europe to strengthen ties with China.”
— WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 (@WarMonitor3) April 14, 2026
Oops. Good luck with that.
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