A growing chorus of criticism has emerged within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) following the US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Rolf Mützenich, a senior SPD foreign policy expert, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that the attempt to strengthen the international order through cooperation, control and treaties has been set back by decades.
The world, which had entered a new phase of aggressive wars with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has become even more uncertain and the actions of its leaders more unpredictable, Mützenich said. It is not ruled out that the Iranian regime may not survive the next few days, but it is also likely that the region will slide into a phase of further conflicts and destabilization, with the consequences that this would entail for the people and the natural foundations of life, he added.
Mützenich, a former SPD faction leader, criticized both the US and Iran in his remarks, accusing the Iranian authorities of trying to create a fait accompli to make the path to a nuclear bomb irreversible and the US of having unilaterally abrogated the nuclear agreement in its first term, thereby undermining the brief period of contractual constraint on the conflict.
The US airstrikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities, Mützenich said, have effectively ended the approach of European foreign policy, which the German government had recently tried to revive with European partners and the US and the Iranian governments had clearly given up on giving each other any more chances.