Germany’s Bundestag has voted to pass a constitutional amendment that would authorize increases in defense, infrastructure, and some foreign aid spending, financed through increased borrowing.
"The decision we are taking today... can be nothing less than the first major step towards a new European defense community,” said likely incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen commented that the vote “sends a very clear message to Europe that Germany is determined to invest massively in defense."
The vote comes amid pressure from the European Community (and the Trump administration) to increase its overall defense spending and begin to wean off military dependency on Washington. Over the last several weeks, Merz and France’s Emmanuel Macron have issued a clarion call regarding this and concerning Ukraine, where they have also pledged assistance in a new “coalition of the willing.”
Debt-averse Germany has had strict limits, currently only allowing for borrowing equal to .35% of its GDP. This new amendment cleared the two-thirds vote required in the Bundestag and would exempt any defense spending or foreign aid for countries “attacked in violation of international law” from borrowing restrictions.
In addition to loosening borrowing limits for defense spending and foreign aid, €500 billion will be earmarked for infrastructure borrowing, as stipulated by the Greens, whose votes were needed for the two-thirds majority.
"This historic breach of Germany's accustomed dread of incurring public debt is risky in terms of domestic politics," said university lecturer and research scholar Molly O'Neal, who is also a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. "It was rushed through the outgoing parliament in order to frustrate the strong opposition of the AfD on the right and Die Linke on the left. These parties together will have a blocking minority in the new parliament. Viewed objectively and without panic, the relaxing of the debt brake allows Germany to meet the expectations of the U.S. and NATO on defense spending. The Germans are not likely to deploy peacekeepers in post-conflict Ukraine without a U.S. backstop guarantee."
The amendment is set for a vote in Germany’s second chamber, the Bundesrat, on Friday. At first, the outcome seemed uncertain as some regional governments voiced opposition to raising the debt limit. However, the head of Bavaria’s State Chancellery announced today that Bavaria’s six members in the Bundesrat would vote in favor of the amendment, ensuring that the measure will likely have enough votes to overcome the two-thirds majority requirement in that chamber.
Aaron is a reporter for Responsible Statecraft and a contributor to the Mises Institute. He received both his undergraduate and masters degrees in international relations from Liberty University.
Top Photo: A general view of the Parliament as German Bundestag President Baerbel Bas delivers words of commemoration on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of Hamas' October 7 attack, ahead of a session of the lower house of parliament Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, October 10, 2024. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
When Israeli warplanes struckIran this week — violating Iranian sovereignty in a brazen act of aggression, killing scores of civilians alongside top military commanders and nuclear scientists and inviting Iran’s equally indiscriminate retaliatory strikes — Europe’s leaders didn’t condemn the attack.
They perversely endorsed it and condemned Iran for the attacks on its own territory.
The president of France Emmanuel Macron set the tone by condemning Iran’s “ongoing nuclear program” and reaffirming “Israel’s right to defend itself and secure its security.” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen seemed to have spoken from the same script “reiterating Israel’s right to defend itself,” embellished by some generic platitudes about the need for restraint and de-escalation.
The German foreign ministry went a step further and actually “strongly condemned” Iran for “an indiscriminate attack on Israeli territory” — even before Tehran launched its missiles in response for Israel’s attack on its territory — while fully endorsing Israel’s actions.
This Orwellian rhetoric isn’t just incompetence or ignorance. It’s the culmination of years of European diplomatic malpractice that helped to manufacture this crisis — and exposed the "rules-based order" as a corpse. Europe’s double standards killed its credibility.
Europe’s stance on Ukraine invoked Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter with political clarity: "All members shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state." Yet when Israel attacked Iran — with no legal basis for self-defense — Europe de-facto reframed aggression as virtue, and condoned it.
Europe’s moral and diplomatic collapse hasn’t gone unnoticed. Two globally respected voices delivered particularly damning verdicts. Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Laureate and former head of the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog, offered a humiliating crash course in international law to the German foreign ministry.
Reacting to Berlin’s endorsement of Israel’s “targeted strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities” (never mind the hundreds of civilians killed in these strikes), El Baradei reminded it that such strikes are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions to which Germany is a party, and that the use of force in international relations “is generally prohibited in the UN Charter with the exception of the right of self-defense in the case of armed attack or upon authorization by the Security Council in the case of collective security action.”
For her part, Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, reacting to Macron’s statement, commented that “on the day Israel, unprovoked, has attacked Iran, the president of a major European power, finally admits that in the Middle East, Israel, and only Israel, has the right to defend itself.”
The message of the likes of El Baradei and Albanese is unequivocal: when Europe applauds Israel’s strike while condemning Russia’s invasion, it doesn’t uphold universal rules — it enforces its tribalist identity: “rules” only apply to adversaries, not friends. This is fatal to Europe’s pretense of moral authority — it has been well noticed in the Global South, but also among many European citizens too.
This pretense looks even more detached from reality given that the crisis in the Middle East erupted on fertile ground prepared by serial European failure. First it was the E3 (Britain, France, Germany) failure to uphold the JCPOA following the U.S. withdrawal under Donald Trump’s presidency in 2018. While the EU offered rhetorical support for the nuclear deal, it buckled to U.S. sanctions and refused to shield EU firms willing to engage with Iran. It let the JCPOA die, de-facto creating a vacuum for escalation.
Further, while mediators like Oman and Qatar brokered talks on a new nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran, the EU pushed for an IAEA resolution censoring Iran days before Israel’s strike, torpedoing de-escalation and contributing to creating a more menacing, dangerous security environment, with the U.N. Security Council sanctions snapback and potential Iran’s withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) lurking in the background.
Each of these failures validated Tehran’s view that it is futile to negotiate with Europe. The E3/EU are now seen not just as a weak party unable to fulfil its commitments under the nuclear agreement, but also an actively destructive player undermining Iran’s security and regional stability.
European powers’ staggering descent into diplomatic irrelevance was starkly illustrated by Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi’s categorical rejection of his British counterpart David Lammy’s pleas to de-escalate. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine why Tehran should heed these calls when they come from parties it sees as actively colluding with the aggressors.
The likely fallout from Europe’s diplomatic self-sabotage is that it incinerated whatever residual trust it still had in Iran and the broader Global South. It all but guaranteed proliferation by giving Iranians — now not just the hardliners — a powerful incentive to seek nuclear weaponization, an outcome that could have been avoided had Europe engaged in serious, good faith talks with Iran on reviving the nuclear deal. Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT is no longer a merely theoretical possibility.
All of these developments dramatically increase the likelihood of blowback against European interests: a regional war in the Middle East means more uncontrolled migration, heightened risks of terrorism on European soil or against European interests in the region, and energy shocks if Iran delivers on its threats to block the Hormuz Straight, the world’s principal oil trade artery.
Absent an urgent but unlikely course correction, such as holding Israel accountable for its regional aggression, Europe’s decay will accelerate. When Brussels exempts allies from rules imposed on rivals, it doesn’t preserve peace — it signs its own geopolitical suicide note.
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Top photo credit: Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson (Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons)
The Republican president who vowed to “Make America Great Again” by ending “endless wars” now finds himself on the precipice of a potential new one.
Israel’s airstrikes on Iran Thursday came after President Donald Trump said he was hopeful for a nuclear deal and made clear publicly that he did not want Israel to interfere by acting militarily.
Israel defied Trump. Trump now says he knew about the strikes all along.
The president wrote on Truth Social early Friday, “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done.” He went on:
“Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” Trump said. “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
Trump’s next move is unknown. But some of the most prominent voices within his extended MAGA movement are pleading with the president not to drag the U.S. into another Middle Eastern war.
Tucker Carlson says Trump is complicit in the strikes and insists that this isn’t America’sfight.
“While the American military may not have physically perpetrated the assault, years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social, undeniably place the U.S. at the center of last night’s events,” Carlson wrote in his Friday newsletter to paid subscribers.
“Washington knew these attacks would happen,” he added. “They aided Israel in carrying them out.”
“It’s worth taking a step back and wondering how any of this helps the United States,” the newsletter reads. “We can’t think of a single way.”
Carlson continued, “If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so. It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases. But not with America’s backing.”
Citing Trump’s foreign policy campaign promises, Carlson noted that direct U.S. involvement in a war with Iran “would be a middle finger in the faces of the millions of voters who cast their ballots in hopes of creating a government that would finally put the United States first.”
“What happens next will define Donald Trump’s presidency,” Carlson concluded. “Drop Israel...let them fight their own wars.”
Former Trump adviser Steven Bannon agrees with keeping the U.S. out of this conflict. "Last night was a decapitation strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” Bannon said. “And hey, you’re putting your defense first and that’s fine. But we gotta put our defense first. And what cannot happen is be drawn into another war."
These MAGA figures are unified in believing the U.S. should not be involved in a war between Israel and Iran, as the old guard, neoconservative voices like Sen. Lindsey Graham and talk host Mark Levin could not contain their excitement over the Israeli strikes. Graham started out with “game on” in a social media post and then it went downhill from here.
Breaking Points’ Saagar Enjeti said Israel made Trump look like a joke. “Israel has now made a mockery of the United States,” he wrote. “President Trump today said he did not want strikes ahead of negotiations scheduled for tomorrow and they did it anyways.”
“Their attack today is deliberate sabotage and a blatant attempt to force us into war. We must resist,” Enjeti added.
Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk said Israel can do what it likes with Iran, but that it was imperative that the U.S. not be involved, and also to ignore neocon voices urging another American war.
Kirk wrote in a lengthy post on X, “In the hours and days to come, there will be hawks who urge America to increase its involvement in this conflict. They will call for us to ‘finish off the mullahs,’ or to help Israel with ‘mopping up.’ They will claim (tell me if you've heard this before) that if we topple the Iranian regime, we will be welcomed as ‘liberators.’ We should be deeply skeptical of these arguments.”
“Our focus must not be on seeking regime change or any further escalation of America's involvement,” Kirk said. “The last thing America needs right now is a new war. Our number one desire must be peace, as quickly as possible.”
MAGA-adjacent libertarian comedian Dave Smith observed, “I thought Covid was the test of Trump’s life but it’s this. I really hope he doesn’t fail both of them and keeps us out of a war here.”
Sen. Rand Paul wrote, “No war with Iran. The Neocons latest plan must be opposed.”
Paul also used positive messaging, “I applaud POTUS for urging Iran back to the negotiating table and making clear the U.S. won’t be involved in Israel’s strike on Iran.”
“Diplomacy and deterrence, not endless war, should be our priority,” Paul said. “That’s what putting America First looks like.”
Rep. Thomas Massie, regular Paul ally and sometimes Trump foe, but still loved by large swaths of MAGA,, shared on X, “Israel doesn’t need US taxpayers’ money for defense if it already has enough to start offensive wars.”
“I vote not to fund this war of aggression,” Massie added.
One of the most vocal antiwar Republicans in Washington, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, kept it simple, “I’m praying for peace. Peace. That’s my official position.”
Peace is clearly MAGA’s position judging by these reactions. Whether it will have a “peace president” to make that happen remains to be seen.
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Top photo credit: Firefighters work at the scene of a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The Israeli attack on Iran is an act of naked aggression, in clear violation of international law as enshrined in the United Nations Charter and of anything that can labeled a rules-based international order.
The attack continues and expands Israel’s record of profligate use of military force throughout its region, including serial attacks on Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories, including the devastation in the Gaza Strip that many informed and objective observers consider genocide. Israel has thrown its military weight around the Middle East far more than any other state and as such is the biggest destabilizing actor in the region.
The Israeli claim that its attack is “pre-emptive” is false. There was no indication of any imminent Iranian attack in the other direction. Nothing in press reporting or leaked intelligence suggested any such thing. Threats to initiate an attack, and associated inflammatory rhetoric, have for years come more from Israel than from Iran, whose own threats have uniformly been couched as warnings that Iran would respond vigorously if Israel attacked it.
Even the looser concept of a preventive war does not justify what Israel has done. The Iranian nuclear program has been the main focus, and Israel says its attack has hit, among other things, nuclear-related targets. But Iran demonstrated with its signature of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and adherence to it — until President Trump in his first term reneged on the agreement — that it was willing to close all paths to a possible Iranian nuclear weapon through peaceful diplomacy and strict international monitoring of its program.
As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, perspective comes from considering who is the attacker as well as who was attacked. Israel is generally understood to have long had the sole nuclear weapons in the Middle East. It acquired that nuclear force clandestinely, outside of any international control regime, and partly by stealing nuclear material from the United States.
And yet, part of its rationale for its aggression against Iran is the mere possibility that Iran might someday acquire a weapon that it has never had and that it has demonstrated the willingness to forego in exchange for normal commercial and political relations with other states.
The Israeli attack is in any case counterproductive as far as nuclear nonproliferation is concerned, as was true of an earlier instance of Israel attacking another state’s nuclear facility. The underground nature of key Iranian nuclear infrastructure, and the knowledge that Iranian scientists will retain, severely limit the extent to which any Israeli airstrikes will set back Iran’s program. Meanwhile, an armed attack by a foreign adversary strengthens whatever voices there are in Tehran arguing that Iran needs to develop a nuclear weapon as a deterrent.
As for ballistic missiles, which Israel also mentioned as a target, no case has been made that of all the armed forces in the Middle East, Iran’s should be the only one stripped of this capability. This is especially true considering that it is Israel that has the biggest capability to deliver lethal ordnance from the air at a distance.
Curbing Iranian military capability is not the sole or even the prime motivation for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to attack Iran. Promoting maximum isolation and hatred of Iran has long been a principal Israeli foreign policy objective, in order to weaken a regional rival, distract attention from Israel’s own destabilizing actions, and prevent a rapprochement between Iran and Israel’s principal backer, the United States.
In furtherance of these objectives, Israel has opposed almost any diplomacy with Iran. Reducing the chance that current U.S.-Iranian negotiations will yield a new nuclear agreement certainly was an Israeli motivation behind the attack.
Netanyahu has additional motivations related to his need to keep a war going indefinitely to maintain his hard-right coalition in power and to delay fully facing corruption charges. With the slaughter in Gaza perhaps nearing a culmination point, beginning a new war against Iran appeared attractive to him.
Some press reports indicate Trump and his advisers knew the Israel attack was coming. In any event, there were enough indications of a coming attack that they should have known. The only appropriate U.S. response would have been to do everything possible to discourage the Israelis from attacking. We do not know that the administration did so.
Among the immediate consequences of the Israeli aggression is that people, including innocent people, will die, or have already been killed. More will die from the inevitable Iranian response. Despite recent efforts by the United States to reduce its vulnerability to a response by evacuating some personnel from the region, some of those killed or otherwise harmed are likely to be American.
In Tehran, the attack will play into the hands of Iranian hardliners, and there will some of the usual rally-round-the-flag effect. The prospects for success in the current nuclear negotiations have suffered a significant blow.
The risks of escalation into a wider war are significant. Some of the possible scenarios would involve U.S. forces.
Without a strong U.S. condemnation of the attack, the United States will share in the international opprobrium that Israel richly deserves.
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