There is a time for diplomacy, clarity: World must now recognize which moment we are in - opinion

The Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites and Tehran’s retaliation against Israeli cities have shaken the geopolitical landscape. Some observers urge restraint, as if that were a moral or strategic end in itself. But as a former prime minister of a NATO member country, I must say clearly: there comes a time when restraint becomes cowardice, and ambiguity becomes complicity. This is one of those moments.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is not merely a rival to Israel. It is not merely a regional power with an inconvenient foreign policy. It is a rogue regime that has hijacked one of the world’s oldest and most cultured civilizations and weaponized it for terror, repression, and destabilization. Iran has been at the heart of nearly every major crisis in the Middle East over the past two decades — not by accident but by design.

Regime methodically cultivated network of proxies

It has bankrolled and armed Hamas, whose horrific massacre on October 7 of Israeli civilians, including children and the elderly, should have erased all doubt about the nature of this network. The regime propped up Bashar al-Assad’s bloody dictatorship in Syria, helping it crush a popular uprising with chemical weapons and barrel bombs, before it finally collapsed last December. It has worked to destabilize Jordan, a key Western ally and a pillar of regional moderation. And all the while, it has pursued a nuclear program shrouded in deceit, deceit so persistent and so shameless that even the International Atomic Energy Agency has run out of diplomatic ways to express concern.

Let us be absolutely clear: Iran's regime is not misunderstood. It is not moderate in disguise. It is not reformable in its current form. It is a theocratic dictatorship that relies on repression at home and chaos abroad to sustain itself.

The West’s refusal to acknowledge this reality with clarity has already caused grave damage. The policies of appeasement and false balance have created a vacuum that Iran has rushed to fill. Diplomacy should never be abandoned — but diplomacy cannot exist in a vacuum of principle. When Iran uses negotiations not to seek peace but to buy time, as it has done for years, engaging in diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake becomes a dangerous illusion.

I have served in intelligence, foreign policy and national leadership. My country has always had a special relationship with Israel – reflected in the fact that even during the communist period relations were not cut off. But this is a broader, universal matter.

I understand well the calculations that underlie official restraint. But I also understand history. Europe in the 1930s showed what happens when democracies, seeking calm above all else, engage in self-deception. Hitler’s rise was not inevitable. It was enabled by the West’s failure to act decisively when his power was still fragile. The doctrine of non-confrontation, of avoiding entanglements at all costs, did not prevent war — it guaranteed a catastrophic one.

In 1956, the West erred by failing to stand clearly with Hungary when Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest. In 2013, it erred by allowing Assad to cross the “red line” with chemical weapons, only to suffer no consequences. Today, we must not add another failure to that list.

Today, some Western voices caution that Israel’s strike on Iranian facilities could provoke further escalation. But the truth is, Israel did what many in the West privately admit needed to be done. It struck because it had no choice. It struck because Iran’s progress toward nuclear breakout — and its increasing impunity — left it no other option.

The alternative was to watch a genocidal regime complete the final piece of its destructive arsenal. No responsible government could accept that. And no ally of Israel should expect it to. Let us not confuse Israel’s imperfect democracy with Iran’s perfect tyranny. Let us not demand of Israel a standard of behavior we would not impose on ourselves under the same threats. And above all, let us not confuse diplomacy with delusion.

This is a time for the Western alliance to show unity — not just behind closed doors, not just with leaks to friendly reporters, but publicly and proudly. We must say what should be obvious: that Israel acted in defense of itself and, indirectly, in defense of a regional and global order increasingly menaced by Iranian adventurism.

I call on NATO member states and EU leaders to abandon the language of "both sides" and speak clearly. Support for Israel does not mean uncritical endorsement of its every policy. It means recognizing the existential threats it faces, and the right it has to meet them with force when necessary.

There is a path forward. The United States and its allies must now lead a coordinated diplomatic initiative that does not merely seek a ceasefire, but demands something more fundamental: the rollback of Iran’s proxy network, the cessation of support for terrorist militias, and binding constraints on its nuclear program. And yes, we must make clear that the Iranian people deserve better than a regime that has squandered their wealth and heritage on a campaign of regional subversion.

In the long run, the only sustainable peace in the region is one in which Iran rejoins the family of nations as a normal country — not an ideological revolution in permanent confrontation with the world. But this will not be achieved through illusions or timidity.

There is a time for diplomacy, and there is a time for clarity. The world must now recognize which moment we are in.

Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu is the former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Romania.