The political reaction in Ireland to the Israeli/American attack on Iran and the collateral intrusions into Lebanon generally follows predictable political lines. The left is opposed to the war and much of the disparate right response has been to say the opposite, with a dose of antipathy to Islam thrown in.
The Pavlovian instinct on the right to support anything the left is against – an instinct also seen very often on the left – places persons who consider themselves to be nationalists in the strange company of people like Alan Shatter who has publicly backed the offensive.
Perhaps some of Shatter’s current admirers might care to recall that he was the main architect of the lucky bag citizenship regulations, has never made any secret of his support for mass immigration, and was one of the early and strongest advocates in Leinster House of legalising abortion.
Misfortune makes strange bedfellows they say. Well, if it comes to that I have no difficulty being ‘objectively’ on the same side as the reds on this war in Iran, though I may disagree with them elsewhere.
In parts of Europe where there is a serious and strong right many of its leaders and supporters have made clear their opposition to what they openly regard as Trump’s ‘adventurism’ – though some have more subtly focused on the negative impact that the offensive is having on Europe in terms of energy and is likely to have as another wave of migration begins.
Co-leaders of Alternative fur Deutschland, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla have been particularly critical. Chrupalla noted that “Donald Trump started as a peace president—he will end as a war president”. AfD has also condemned the impact on Iranian civilians including the strike on the school that killed a reported 160 young girls.
Just this morning, the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni strongly criticised the Iranian intervention and what she termed “the massacre of little girls” at the Minab school that was hit by what appears to have been an American Tomahawk missile..
Others on the ‘right’ seem to regard the whole thing as a video game in which they can emote in Batman like ‘Biffs,’ ‘booms’, and ‘kabongs’ as people who are the Supreme Leaders of nothing, nor the funders of Hezbollah, are bombed into oblivion.
In the lands of joined-up thinking on the right, the AfD and other European parties have warned not only of the destabilising impact of the onslaught on the world economy but that this will lead to a potentially massive new wave of migration that will further exacerbate that problem just as the Migration Pact comes into force.
(If and when that happens, of course, the left will be joining the corporate funded NGOs and the EU commission and the advocates of ‘free movement of capital and labour’ on the centre-right in calling for easing of restrictions. The pro-war, anti-immigration right will be scratching its head and wondering what was the cause of it.)
Hungary, with the ruling party Fidesz facing next month’s election which polls predict it will lose, has taken a similar critical stance as AfD towards the Israeli/American coup de main.
Viktor Orbán has prioritised the impact that this will have on Hungary and Europe rather than saying what best suits their relationship with either the EU Commission or the Americans.
In an interview last Thursday, Orbán claimed that he had reminded Trump of the dangers of such interventions in the light of what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States became disastrously entangled despite overwhelming military superiority. He also made subtle reference to ‘regime change’ when posing the question as to whether what will be put in place of the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard will mark an improvement. Admirers of the family of the late Shah and his Savak secret police seem to think it will.
It clearly did not in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria where the US actions only created more chaos which continues to have detrimental consequences not only for the unfortunate people bombed into freedom but for the European countries forced to deal with the consequences of mass movements of migrants.
In practical terms, Orbán’s government has introduced a cap on fuel prices in order to protect consumers against the rising costs of oil as the adventure continues despite Trump’s appearing to promise two days ago that there might be an early conclusion. Perhaps his unelected advisors thought differently.
In contrast to the realpolitik of Orbán and others there are the examples of Nigel Farage and others who appear in a fit of patriotic fervour to see the Iranian adventure as a chance to maybe even get their own armed forces involved.
In another interview, Orbán said that “the world has turned upside down” and that this requires not bald headed cheerleading of ‘our side’ but a sober appraisal of what is best for European countries individually and for Europe and indeed the West as a whole.
This is on an entirely different level to atavistic leftist antipathy to America on the one hand; and a simplistic view that bombing ‘Muslims’ is a good thing for people in Ireland who are worried about plans to open a mosque.
Unfortunately, with some exceptions we do not have such a serious formation of opinion on the right in Ireland.