An Iranian missile striking European soil? A powerful wake-up call. A crazy idea – or perhaps not

As things stand, one might even hope that an Iranian missile would strike an American base in Europe – without causing any deaths or injuries, and perhaps even better if it were intercepted. It would be a powerful wake-up call, louder than the blathering bombs of Pomezia, which would instantly restore – as the missile approaches – the lost sense of purpose of the EU, NATO and their mixture of weakness and diplomacy. The endless, pompous discussions on the ‘Rearm Europe’ programme would come to an end. It would be understood instantly: given that electronic warfare is not enough, an explosive drone in Leipzig targeting a Ukrainian cargo ship is insufficient, and the longest, most provocative and tormenting war of aggression against a European democracy – with China behind it via its proxies North Korea and Iran in an open military alliance – fails to make us grasp reality; well, it would all become clear with just a single missile, aimed at Bulgaria or Greece or Sicily or Cyprus. That would be what lazy journalists consider an ‘uncomfortable truth’. Perhaps it is not on the cards for the reasons – including ballistic ones – outlined by General Camporini; perhaps it is merely a bully’s threat because, in reality, the buffoons in Tehran have no interest in rousing Europe from its dogmatic slumber and its supposed neutrality. But dreaming of a semblance of a global extension of the war to avert its actual outbreak is not forbidden. It may well be – more so than Nathalie Tocci’s well-meaning but risky idea – that sending troops to Ukraine to force action is a way of extricating oneself from this treachery at limited cost, before it spirals beyond the proportions currently foreseeable. It may be the solution to see through the bluff or the menacing prospect posed by the Trump administration and the Pentagon under the ineffable Hegseth. As usual, the markets would applaud this passive-aggressive development – and the shake-up.

At present, the only thing that is frivolous yet weighty, characterising European diplomacy and the differing positions of nation states and public opinion, is the so-called defence of international law – hence the condemnation of Israel; the resurgence, including for electoral purposes, of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism in the West; and hence the hope that peace will be achieved in Gaza, regardless of Hamas, in Lebanon, regardless of Hezbollah; in the Strait of Hormuz and in Tehran, regardless of the oil blockade and the lifting of the death sentences against Iranian resistance fighters, without giving much thought to enriched uranium and the pre-nuclear capabilities of the regime of the Ayatollahs and the Pasdaran. Not to mention the way the issue of corruption has been linked to the European defence war being waged by Zelensky’s Ukrainians. A paralysing political and moral entanglement of this magnitude is difficult to untangle. Unlikely, but not impossible in theory, a hit-and-run missile strike on pristine European soil – a drone in Cyprus is not enough, and for NATO a missile aimed at Turkey is not enough – could prove to be the signal marking a turning point, the identification and recognition of the true enemy—neglected until now for the sake of business and energy—whom we lack in every sense but can scarcely regain by bowing to the dictates of what is considered, not entirely without reason, the regional power that emerged victorious from Trump’s ‘drôle de guerre’ in the Middle East.

These are unorthodox, sensationalist, irresponsible ideas, just as you’d expect from journalism school – but perhaps not quite so much.