TEHRAN – An Israeli war against Lebanon would be a grave mistake with serious consequences, Iran’s President warned during a telephone conversation with his French counterpart Emanuel Macron.

Masoud Pezeshkian made the warning as Israel has been threatening to “tear Lebanon apart” in recent days, saying it is preparing a response to a Saturday missile attack on the occupied territories that it attributes to the Hezbollah Resistance movement. It has also claimed that the weapon was Iranian-made. 

The missile hit a football field in the occupied Golan Heights resulting in the deaths of 12 people, mostly children. Hezbollah has rejected responsibility for the attack, with eyewitnesses reporting that the incident was caused by a misfired Iron Dome interceptor missile.

The football field was located in the Majdal Shams region, a predominantly Druze town. While Israel’s military spokesperson Daniel Hagari initially identified the victims as “Israeli citizens”, he was later caught telling the regime’s reporters that the dead were not citizens of Israel. Hagari seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the microphone attached to him was capturing his voice.

Some analysts believe Israel was hoping to rile up the large Druze community living in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestinian lands, and pit them against Resistance forces.  So far, it seems that the regime’s plot has failed. 

During the Monday call, Pezeshkian also pointed to the exasperating humanitarian conditions in the besieged Gaza Strip, where almost 40,000 people have been killed by Israeli fire in the past 10 months, with the rest of the population struggling to survive due to the regime’s man-made famine and destruction of the enclave’s infrastructure. 

“Iran will not spare any efforts to help resolve the crisis in Gaza as well as establish peace and stability in the region,” the Iranian president added. 

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said during the official endorsement of Pezeshkian on Sunday that the world must come to its senses and "make a serious decision regarding Israel". 

“The Zionist regime is not a government. They're a gang of criminals. They’re a gang of murderers. They’re a gang of terrorists. In their acts of terrorism, cruelty, and crime, they’ve reached a new level in their shocking crimes in the history of human criminality in the world,” he asserted.

Iran ready to expand relations with France

Elsewhere in his remarks, Pezeshkian told Macron that Iran is ready to improve relations with France based on “honesty” and “mutual trust.” He also expressed Tehran’s readiness to re-engage in talks to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He, however, added that Tehran expects other parties to “live up to all their commitments and to cease pressure and oppressive sanctions against the Iranian nation.”

Pezeshkian’s remarks come after Ayatollah Khamenei said during the president’s Sunday endorsement that while the expansion of ties with Europe is not a priority for Iran, the country is still willing to pursue deeper ties with European states if they rectify their behavior towards Iran. 

“If these countries refrain from misbehavior, we will prioritize relations with them as well. However, there are a few countries whose hostile conduct will not be forgotten,” the Leader stated. 

The state of European ties with Iran in recent years

Relations between Iran and European countries have deteriorated significantly in recent years, largely due to Europe's increasingly hostile stance.

The domino began with the European Trio (Germany, UK, France) failing to compensate for Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018. While the three countries condemned then-President Donald Trump for scrapping the pact and sided with Iran at least in words, they began to escalate tensions with Tehran with the commencement of Joe Biden’s administration. 

Europe has since then imposed various sanctions against Iran, all based on unfounded or false accusations. These sanctions now encompass a wide range of areas, including banking transactions, transportation, oil sales, technology, academic services, and even investments in Iran's oil and gas sector. This is in addition to individual sanctions imposed by European countries. 

Europe must decouple from Washington on Iran affairs

Europeans have a predilection for following in the footsteps of Washington in adjusting ties with not just Iran, but almost any other country in the world. They have put all their eggs in one basket, and seem to actively ignore the fact that a new world order is in the making, which means Europe may have to decouple from Washington, at least in foreign and security policy.

The last major decision Europe made while clinging to the U.S. as its leader, was when it decided to largely dismantle its ties with Russia as a response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Since February of 2022, the EU has given $156 billion in military and financial aid to Kyiv, only to have the majority of its equipment destroyed by Russia before even reaching Ukrainian forces, who have already lost an entire generation of young men on the battlefield. And the EU continues to pour money into Ukraine, driven by U.S. warnings about Russia's plans to invade the rest of Europe. Analysts paint an even bleaker picture for the future of Ukrainian forces, predicting that they will only encounter more setbacks in the face of Russia's military superiority.

Apart from wasting money on the hopeless Ukrainian military, Europe is experiencing more economic difficulties as it has to purchase gas from the U.S. at a price 4 times more expensive than the Russian gas it used to import. It seems that Washington will continue to rake in money this way, as it made sure to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline to prevent any future export of Russian energy products to Europe. 

With the air now clearing about the consequences of Europe’s blind abidance of Washington’s foreign policies, the new Iranian administration’s willingness to expand ties with Europe, and the Leader of the Islamic Revolution’s green light for such move, it seems that an overhaul of policies towards Iran would benefit European states in the future.