Interview with EP member Danilo Della Valle.
Interview with EP member Danilo Della Valle.
We are continuing our interviews with European voices. This time, we asked Danilo Della Valle about the attack on Iran, the NATO summit, the global transition to multipolarity and European perspective on global peace.
Della Valle is a Member of the European Parliament and also member of the Italian Five Star Movement.
How do you evaluate the recent attack on Iran?
The Middle East is a reflection of the foreign policy of the United States and its allies over the last decade. Attempts to export democracy, so-called humanitarian wars, have only brought more instability and insecurity to the world. Generations of people have grown up who hate the West and everything that represents it. Iran is just the last piece of this grand puzzle. And this time, unlike what happened with Iraq, where a singular rule of international law was still in force, this time they didn’t even have to invent lies to justify the attack.
Iran does not have weapons of mass destruction, as was claimed of Iraq. Iran has been attacked by the threat that it may have them. Iran is only one pole of a multipolar world that the US hegemony and its Middle Eastern bridgehead, Israel, do not want to tolerate. And we already know the outcome: they want it. The same thing that happened in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen, and everywhere else in the world where Americans have intervened in recent decades to export democracy.
The world is becoming multipolar. I think the United States clearly doesn’t want that, nor do its allies. What’s happening in Iran could be very dangerous because of war, you know, in the West. The United States, to survive, has to wage wars, and what’s more dangerous for me is what we have to do: build relationships with everyone, talk to everyone, build peace, build cooperation, and work for a more just and clearly multipolar world.
How do you see Europe’s role in this current conflict with Iran?
Israel is dragging us by force into a very dangerous spiral, at a time when European leaders are the best expression of what we might call the ruling class; they are yes-men, who obey orders from the Pentagon or the Israeli Mossad, leading all of Europe into a black hole from which it sometimes seems impossible to escape. It’s not just the irrelevance of our governments in the eyes of the world, but also the total loss of credibility of fundamental values such as democracy and human rights, destroyed by double morality and double standards.
Where does this conflict, this US attack on Iran, fit into the unipolarity-multipolarity debate?
It’s clear that the world is changing, and I think this attack is because the United States wants to defend what it wants, that is, unipolarity. They don’t want the world to continue changing and transforming. And we can also see this in the double standard they’re using, because they say Iran can’t have the bomb and Iran is dangerous, etc. But they’re defending, for example, Israel, which is violating international law in every way, every day, killing girls and boys, using hunger as a weapon of war, as they did to Germany in 1941 in Leningrad, and that’s terrible. But from that perspective, we have to understand the truth: that human rights and international law are often used solely for geopolitical ends. This happens when they talk about Latin America, when the United States wants to change governments in Latin America, and it happens when they try to attack countries that don’t want to be part of what they say, like Russia, like China, like the BRICS.
And I think a war with Iran could be very dangerous because after Iran, what happens? Do they want to attack the Chinese, or do they want to confront Russia directly? We’re already in a hybrid war, aren’t we? In Russia.
Could this also be an attack intended to cause friction in the alliance of countries that defend multipolarity? I mean, there are good ties between Iran and Russia, Iran and China, and perhaps there, what do you think?
It could be, of course, because I also don’t think they’re going to get into a direct war and that could clearly cause friction, of course. I think the United States is trying all the Trump weapons many times. He also said that you have to divide Russia and China as well, and all the BRICS countries, because together they really can change the world order.
In the eyes of a child born in Moscow, Beijing, or Cape Town, what credibility do we have if we impose 18 sanctions on Russia and, in the face of Israel’s war crimes, the invasion of Libya, Syria, and the recent attack on Iran, we talk about the right to defense? Since I first entered the European Parliament, instead of entering the institution that should symbolize peace, I am increasingly convinced that I find myself in a place emblematic of double standards.
In more than two years of genocide, with thousands of Palestinians murdered live worldwide, not a single resolution condemning Israel has been passed, but we have voted seven resolutions against the elections in Georgia. In fact, because Georgia legitimately refused to become a new Ukraine.
How do you evaluate European calls for peace?
Today, this is no longer just an idea, but rather the need we have: to build a truly pacifist alternative, because the alternative to peace, diplomacy, and cooperation is a repeat of what we experienced in the first half of the 20th century. Neighboring countries arm themselves only to wage war and destroy each other. And no one knows if the result will be the same as in 1945 or a much worse consequence.
Is Germany using its debt to create the largest European army? That’s Europe’s response. Instead of investing in mediation, they continue blindly obeying Washington’s orders.
Likewise, we can say of the NATO summit: the increase in military spending is neither democratic, because NATO has no mandate to decide state spending, nor fair. It will just be a new war, a new form of austerity that the people will pay for.
Truly, in this world, is that the world we want? Millions of people will have to sacrifice their lives for the decisions of a small elite of oligarchs living in the least populated part of the world? Here in Europe, how many sacrifices will workers and people have to make to finance this war?
Let’s talk about peace, practice peace, fight for peace, and above all, let’s try to build a credible alternative to this group of criminals who rule our countries. They must be thrown out. People are tired. They no longer believe what they say, their propaganda, and it no longer works.
The massive mobilizations across Europe and in Italy against the war on behalf of the Palestinians demonstrate that people no longer believe the lie machine, but only the truth can defeat those who today refuse to relinquish power and privilege.