On Friday, Israel launched a surprise attack on nuclear facilities and missile sites across Iran. This has been followed by escalating strikes between the two countries in the days that have followed.

Israel’s unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran is an unmitigated catastrophe for global efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons. The attack, though sold as a counterproliferation measure, is also increasing the likelihood that Iran itself will leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and become the world’s 10^th state possessing nuclear weapons.

To avoid such a scenario, or at least reduce the negative implications for non-proliferation, those states believing in international law and global efforts to reduce nuclear dangers must call out Israel for its violations of international law and reject the idea that nuclear dangers can be sustainably reduced through the use of military force against possible proliferators.

Europeans, in particular, can and should steer discussions around Israel’s attack in a way that protects multilateral non-proliferation instruments. They must come down from the fence from which they have been observing the conflict and engage on the side of diplomacy and international law.

Nuclear diplomacy with Iran

Israel’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and civilian infrastructure came days ahead of another round of talks between Tehran and Washington, aimed at resolving or at least freezing the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The assault has shattered hopes that diplomacy could provide a way out of the escalatory circle that Iran and the remaining Western parties to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) found themselves in, following Donald Trump’s 2018 decision that the United States would stop complying with the agreement and UN Security Council resolution 2231 that made the accord binding.

Since 2019, Iran has successively shed JCPOA obligations, at least initially, in an attempt to create leverage vis-à-vis the remaining parties. This policy has brought Iran closer to the nuclear weapons threshold, and some believed that Iran was merely playing for time, waiting for major JCPOA restrictions to expire in October this year in order to then go for a nuclear weapon. Whatever one’s analysis of Iranian safeguards violations, at the time of Israel’s strike, diplomatic options had not been exhausted.

While France, Germany, and the UK were still talking to Iran even after Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, Europeans had generally sidelined themselves, unable to speak clearly about violations of international humanitarian law in Israel’s military actions in Gaza and paralysed by the contradictory messages being sent by members of the Trump administration. Against such a background, European statements that they remain ready to facilitate talks with Iran sound naïve at best.

More worrying and damaging to European credibility is the acceptance of Israel’s line that the attack on Iran was an act of self-defence. Despite the IAEA declaring on 12 June that Iran was in breach of its safeguards obligations, the IAEA found no indication prior to the attack that Iran had revived its long-dormant military nuclear programme. IAEA inspectors remained on the ground – and have to be praised for their courage to continue to monitor Iranian nuclear activities even as Israel’s bombs started falling. Even Donald Trump’s intelligence agencies were not convinced of the Israeli argument that Israel had resumed military nuclear research and reached a point of no return. In any case, Israel soon made clear that its strikes are not only about setting back Iran’s nuclear efforts but also about facilitating the fall of Iran’s government. The US President soon chimed in, calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”.

Counterproliferation is counterproductive

From a non-proliferation perspective, Israel’s attacks are counterproductive, even if both sides find an off-ramp to the current hostilities. Although much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will be destroyed, the whereabouts of those critical components that Israel has not destroyed will be difficult to trace. Under such circumstances, establishing a baseline of Iranian nuclear capabilities will be difficult, if not impossible. Even in the extremely unlikely case that this or a future Iranian government agrees to US and Israeli demands for zero-enrichment, monitoring compliance with such a concession would be more challenging.

Of course, the longer the war rages and the more destruction Israel (and possibly the United States) wreaks on Iranian nuclear and civilian infrastructure, the more likely it will become that Tehran concludes that it has nothing left to lose. Iran would move towards NPT withdrawal and reviving its military nuclear programme, which it had not done prior to the 13 June attacks. On Monday, the Iranian Parliament started debating a bill that could force the government to initiate a withdrawal from the NPT.

Counterproliferation, that is, the use of force to prevent a state from going nuclear, is generally counterproductive. Of the nine cases where military force was used in order to stop a nuclear programme, including Allied attacks on German nuclear infrastructure during World War II and Iranian and US attacks on Iraqi nuclear facilities in the 1980s and 1990s, only one can be successful in the sense of stopping nuclear ambitions (the 2008 Israeli attack on the Al-Kibar nuclear reactor in Syria). Generally speaking, military force will only stiffen resistance and lead to programmes to go underground, as happened after the Israeli attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.

Furthermore, it is to be feared that other would-be-proliferators would draw the lesson that reducing transparency is a safer option when it comes to conducting nuclear activities. After all, the continued presence of IAEA inspectors did not protect Iran from Israel’s strikes.

Implications for the NPT

To be sure, Israel’s attack will cause plenty of serious collateral damage to the NPT. An Iranian withdrawal could lead others in the region to reconsider their membership, too. The United States has traditionally invested much political capital in reining in such ambitions. But under Donald Trump, Washington will likely view such proliferation through the narrow lens of “what is in it for me?”

From a treaty perspective, it is troubling that double standards, already implicit in many Western countries’ policies towards Israel, will be on open display. This was an attack by a state that has never signed on to the NPT, developed nuclear weapons while maintaining a posture of “nuclear opacity” that allowed its partners in the West to turn a blind eye. The German chancellor’s declaration of “respect” for the attack, arguing that Israel has done “the dirty work for all of us”, is a bad omen, signalling that Western governments are ready to endorse a “might makes right” attitude.

Many NPT states, particularly from the Middle East, may no longer be willing to tolerate such duplicity, even if they are no friends of Iran. The future of talks on a Zone free of Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East, which have been the key arena to voice such misgivings, is more than uncertain.

Should Iran go nuclear, it is likely to be willing to test its nuclear capability, putting further pressure on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Efforts to better protect civil nuclear facilities in war and conflict, which have been highlighted by IAEA DG Rafael Grossi, have also taken a further hit. Russia may also be tempted to supply Iran with new and novel nuclear technologies, shattering whatever was left of international unity on using export controls to stem nuclear proliferation.

What multilateralists should do

This list of negative developments for the NPT and global efforts to tackle nuclear dangers can easily be extended. But the point is clear: Less than a year before the next NPT Review Conference, those countries still believing in multilateralism as the best way to reduce nuclear weapons must act quickly, coherently, and decisively to try to contain the damage of Israel’s attack on non-proliferation measures.

First, it is important to be upfront about where those supporting multilateralism stand in this war. Europeans may look back 22 years. In 2003, many from “old Europe” spoke out against false US accusations against Iraq and then, against the background of US resistance against diplomacy, engaged Tehran in an effort that led eventually to the JCPOA. Diplomacy can work.

While Europeans have failed to warn Israel against its illegal attack publicly, it may not be too late to explain to Washington that they would not support the US in any regional war triggered by Israel’s attack.

Second, those Europeans and other states willing to stand up for international law should be ready to take risks in outlining off-ramps for the parties involved. In the wake of the war in Gaza, Europe’s credibility and influence in the region are at a low point. But Europeans in particular could still leverage their political and military support for Israel and attempt to offer Iran the prospect of economic engagement.

Third, states in favour of multilateralism need to be clear on whether they view nuclear weapons as an asset or a liability. From the perspective of decision-makers in Tehran, it must seem absurd that Europeans are demanding that Iran dismantle its nuclear programme while at the same time European officials openly speculate about European nuclear options and thinktankers praise nuclear latency as a good option for European non-nuclear weapon states.

Fourth, Europeans must take the lead in hardening and protecting non-proliferation institutions. These regimes already suffer from Russia’s sustained onslaught against multilateralism. Through a mix of deft diplomacy, naming and shaming, and clever moves to isolate Moscow, Europeans have been able to protect these arrangements more or less up to now. It is not at all clear that the same mix of policies will be sufficient to harden these institutions against the Trump administration’s attacks against them. Israel’s attacks have complicated that difficult task further.

The strength of international norms and regulations depends on compliance with them. But norm robustness crucially also depends on how others react to violations. Thus, a new coalition for multilateralism is needed to protect international non-proliferation norms against violations, regardless of who commits them. Europeans can bring unparalleled political, economic, and military clout to the table to support such an endeavour. Israel’s attack on Iran is threatening global non-proliferation norms, putting Europe’s commitment to multilateralism and protecting the NPT to a real test.

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

Image: Wikimmedia commons, Oleg Yunakov