Dilemmas for Greece with the war against Iran

None of us - certainly not me - will shed a single tear over the blow to the cruel regime of Iran. But we should shed a river of tears over the way it was done and for the verification of the death of the international legal order and international law, at least as we knew it.

I am not sure which is sadder and more infuriating, the deafening silence of the European Union or the statements of leaders like Chancellor Merz in Washington. But I am sure that both have similar effects.

I don’t know if “it’s not the time to comment on the legality of recent actions” [as per the Greek PM’s statement on the Venezuela case] or if this is exactly the time, because no one has the right to take the law in their own hands, not even in provincial vendettas, let alone on the international stage. But I do know that the current state of affairs, characterized by the circumvention of the law, the discrediting of institutions, the normalization of exception and the legitimization of bullying, is disastrous for us. It is the worst possible development for countries like Greece and Cyprus that have been struggling for decades to build a foreign policy – ​​or at least its narrative – on international law.

It is not clear to me how, with the recent and ongoing crisis in Cyprus, declarations about “tripartite/quadripartite alliances”, “strategic partners”, “pillars of stability”, “protection domes”, “frameworks of upgraded and strengthened strategic relations” are being implemented on the ground. But it is quite clear to me what can happen when situations are allowed to develop – if not even cultivated – exclusively on the basis of a transactional mentality: close to peace councils, far from the statutes of international criminal courts and even further from multilateral diplomacy schemes.

Perhaps our existential dangers will ultimately take a different form than the ones we knew or imagined. But I may – and I hope – just simply be wrong.

• Harry Tzimitras is the Director of the PRIO Cyprus Centre
• This text was first published in Greek by I Efimerida ton Syntakton (Journalists’ Newspaper) Athens