Friday, June 13, 2025. While western chancelleries still observe the turmoil of war in Ukraine and the attitude of the Kremlin master, it is at the heart of the Middle East, once again, that the worst is to be feared. Israel announced that it had led a “Preventive strike” Against Iran, aimed at strategic military infrastructure. In Tehran, the state media evoke civilian deaths in a residential complex, where women and children have perished.
In the hours that followed, the Israeli Defense Minister declared the state of national emergency, anticipating an immediate response from the Islamic Republic. “A missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future”he warned. Tehran, for his part, promises an answer “Strong, decisive and historical”. On the surface of this conflict, there is the fear of Iranian reprisals. But in depth, it is the ancient strata of a larger confrontation, of a hidden hostility that the world fears for two decades: that of the proliferation of Iranian military nuclear.
For us Western, Iran’s nuclear program is a geopolitical enigma as old as it is complex. It all started in the 1950s, when the Shah, under American guardianship, began a civilian nuclear program. Iran ratifies the non-proliferation treaty (TNP) in 1970 and benefits from Western expertise. But the 1979 Islamic Revolution rebatted the maps. The country isolates itself, partially interrupts its program, before secretly relaunching it in the 1980s, in the middle of the war against Iraq. From the 2000s, the international community discovered, dumbfounded, the existence of unsuccessful sites, like those of Natanz and Arak. The suspicions of a militarization thicken.
Diplomatic weaknesses
In 2015, a historic agreement – the famous JCPOA – was born in Vienna. Iran is committed to drastically reducing its uranium enrichment capacities, in exchange for a gradual lifting of international sanctions. But this fragile balance shatters in 2018, when President Donald Trump, in a unilateral decision, withdraws the United States from the agreement. Consequently, Iran resumes its activities, exceeds the authorized thresholds, limits the IEA inspections. For the past five years, he has been flirting dangerously with the nuclear threshold, without ever admitting it formally. A particularly disturbing ambiguity strategy.
The current situation is probably the most explosive that the Middle East has known since the Kippur War. Two regional powers now compete openly. Israel, a Jewish state surrounded by enemies, with the atomic weapon but subject to constant existential pressure, has always considered a nuclear Iran as a red line. Iran, meanwhile, advances masked, handles the language of peace while funding Hezbollah, arming the Iraqi militias, supporting the Houthis, and openly defying Tel Aviv by repeated military maneuvers.
Iran plays with fire, and it is the whole region that risks igniting
France was right to recall the right of Israel to defend itself. Faced with a theocratic regime which no longer hides its imperialist ambitions, prudence can only lead to weakness. No one wishes regional conflagration, but everyone must recognize that diplomatic weakness in recent years has enabled Iran to reach a level of enrichment above 60 %, the highest never noted outside the circle of nuclear powers. International law is clear: this military use of the atom is not tolerable. Iran plays with fire, and the whole region is likely to be breeked.
In this theater of shadows and threats, other powers play a troubled game. China, eager to weaken the Western Bloc, discreetly supports Iran through its investments, technology deliveries and parallel diplomacy. Russia, now linked to Tehran by circumstance alliances and mutual deliveries of drones and armaments, sees in the Middle Eastern climbing a way of diverting the attention of its war in Ukraine. Neither Beijing nor Moscow will play the peacemakers there.
The West, and particularly Europe, must regain its voice. The United Nations cannot be content to publish timid press releases. It takes an ambitious diplomatic initiative, a return to the negotiating table – but this time, without naivety. The hollow promises of Tehran no longer buy peace. Only a controlled and verifiable de -escalation, backed by concrete guarantees and an increased presence of the IAEA, could prevent the region from switching to the irremediable.
In the heart of the eastern night, the atomic threat hovers like a shadow. The world cannot be content to look. Iran has chosen to play a dangerous game: it is up to the international community to ensure that it does not define the rules alone.
