European Parliament's Anti-Iran Resolution Exposes the Bloc's Weakness

The recent vote in the EU Parliament indicates that, while the bloc is trying to send a tough message to Iran, it cannot intimidate the Islamic Republic.

The EU Parliament's latest resolution on Iran's strike against Israel was both hypocritical and toothless, according to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (QI).

The resolution avoided mentioning that Tehran's strike came in response to Israel's attack on the Iranian embassy compound in the Syrian capital Damascus that killed two high-ranking Iranian generals.

While mentioning that the Iranian consulate was bombed, the document pretends that the perpetrator is unknown.

MEPs proposed two key measures to punish Tehran:

Although the measures may seem harsh, the parliament's resolutions are not legally binding. To become EU policy, any resolution must be unanimously approved by leader's of the bloc's 27 member states in the European Council.

The DC think-tank offered two reasons why such a decision is unlikely.

First, triggering a of the UN sanctions on Iran would require approval from Washington, and US President Joe Biden has recently made it clear that he is not interested in further escalating tensions with Iran ahead of the November elections.

Re-imposing UN restrictions may lead to Iran abandoning the Non-Proliferation Treaty and completely denying access to its nuclear facilities for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, the QI argued.

This, in turn, could prompt Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative government to launch an all-out attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities, lead to a full-blown Iran-Israel war. "A big war in the Middle East is certainly not what Biden needs in the election year," noted the think-tank.

Second, including the IRGC in the EU list of terrorist groups would require nit just the backing of all member states, but a "judicial ruling in an EU member state implicating the IRGC in a terrorist activity."

None of the two preconditions appear to be present as Italy and Spain remain skeptical about designating an entire security body of a foreign nation as a terrorist entity, according to the Quincy Institute.

The European Parliament’s resolution ultimately appears to be "a simple virtue-signaling exercise," the QI said. It does signal that the EU's relationship with Iran is going downhill, but at the same time it shows that the bloc is only capable of noisy saber-rattling.