A European Civil Power Initiative for Iran

What Gharibabadi's Warning Actually Reveals

R.M. Westerink; September 2026

This week, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi had a message for Europe: helping the US strike Iran "will not go unanswered."[1] NATO's own Secretary General had just confirmed that thousands of American sorties flew out of European bases during the war. Tehran's point was simple — Europe isn't neutral. Europe is complicit.

It reads like a threat. It is one. But underneath it is something more interesting: an admission that Europe still matters to Iran, separately from the United States.

That's worth pausing on. Because right now, Iran is negotiating almost entirely with Washington — trading a reopened Strait of Hormuz for an eased blockade, at the UN in New York, this very week. Europe isn't in that room. Gharibabadi's warning is really aimed at Washington, delivered through Europe because Europe is the exposed one.

Europe could just absorb that threat and move on. Or it could ask a better question: what if Iran's warning is actually an opening?

Iran Has Been Saying What It Wants for Months

Iran hasn't hidden its ambitions. Its own officials keep repeating them.

President Pezeshkian has said the region "does not need external guardianship" and that regional states "can sit together and solve their problems." Parliament speaker Ghalibaf has spoken of the US seeking an "honorable exit" and a "new regional order" with less foreign interference. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has quietly built new defense ties with Pakistan and Turkey — a sign that even Washington's closest Gulf partners are hedging their bets.

The pattern is clear: Iran wants fewer relationships that run exclusively through Washington, and more that don't.

That is exactly the gap Europe could fill — if it stops treating every Iran story as a security threat to manage and starts treating it as a relationship it could actually shape.

Why This Would Suit Iran

A direct channel to Europe gives Tehran something the US talks never will:

A way to reduce isolation without looking like it caved to Washington.
A second track that keeps working even if the Hormuz negotiation with the US collapses.
A partner whose regional framework isn't built entirely around guaranteeing Israel's security.
Leverage of its own — the more capitals Iran can talk to, the less any single one can dictate terms.

None of this requires Iran to become Europe's friend. It only requires Iran to see Europe as useful in a way Washington can't be.

Why It Would Suit Europe Even More

Here's what's easy to miss: everything on that list works just as well in reverse.

Right now, Europe doesn't really have a Middle East policy. It has an echo of Washington's. A direct relationship with Iran would be the first real evidence otherwise — proof that Europe can act on its own reading of its own interests, not just co-sign someone else's.

Those interests are concrete. European ships and European energy depend on a strait Europe has no independent say over. Waiting for the US and Iran to work that out leaves Europe's own economy hostage to a negotiation it isn't part of. Europe can secure its own interest in Hormuz directly, instead of hoping Washington gets the deal right.

And then there's the part that matters most, even though it's rarely said out loud: a Europe that can talk to Iran on its own terms is a Europe with real leverage on Israel, for the first time in years. Europe's influence on settlements, on Gaza, on the West Bank has been weak precisely because Europe brings nothing to the table that Washington doesn't already control. A working channel to Tehran changes that. It's proof Europe can move the region without asking permission — and that's the only kind of leverage that has ever actually shifted Jerusalem's calculations.

Two Things Europe Needs, Regardless of Each Other

A secure Hormuz is a European interest on its own. European ships, European energy, European trade run through that strait — none of that should wait on Iran's human rights record improving, any more than it should wait on Washington's negotiation with Tehran succeeding.

Reduced repression is a European position on its own too. Europe opposes executions everywhere, not as something it raises only when it also wants shipping guarantees. The moment human rights become a bargaining chip, they stop being a principle.

Keeping the two apart is what makes each one credible. Iran can't buy its way out of scrutiny on repression by cooperating on shipping. Europe can't be accused of only caring about human rights when it suits its energy security.
Two expectations, two timelines — Europe holds both, and neither buys relief from the other.

The same goes for the NATO-basing exposure Gharibabadi raised, and for Europe's own push to protect shipping through Hormuz. Both are genuine European interests, worth pursuing because they're Europe's, not because they're chips in someone else's negotiation.

What Europe Can Hold, in Parallel

None of this is a single deal to be struck. It's a set of expectations Europe can hold at the same time, each one standing on its own:

Iran	Europe
No attacks on European ships, personnel or infrastructure	Makes clear its own defenses aren't preparation for attacking Iran
Supports an international effort to keep Hormuz open	Leads that effort itself, rather than leaving it to Washington
Verifiably reduces executions and repression	Expands engagement step by step as that happens — never as a swap for something else
Accepts real nuclear verification	Offers its own diplomatic track on nuclear questions
Reins in destabilizing regional activity	Backs a regional order that includes Iran instead of isolating it

Nobody has to become anybody's ally for this to work.
Iran stays Iran. Europe stays Europe. They just stop needing each other to be enemies.

The Point Worth Making Publicly

Iran wants the region to depend less on Washington.
Europe should want the same thing for its own Middle East policy. Those two ambitions don't cancel each other out — they line up.

Europe can't end a war it didn't start. But it doesn't have to keep being defined by it either.

A Europe willing to deal with Iran directly is a Europe that finally has something of its own to offer — to Tehran, and eventually, to Jerusalem too.

Reference

[1] Europe's help in US attacks not to go unanswered
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/248057/Europe-help-in-US-attacks-against-Iran-not-to-go-unanswered

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Friday, September 25, 2026