Can Europe remain on the sidelines in a long Iran war?

This week it was hard not to feel the chill echoes of the Covid-19 pandemic that ravaged Europe and almost crippled its economy in 2020-21. “If this [Iran] war escalates into a major regional conflict,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz told a news conference in Berlin on Monday, “it could burden Germany and Europe even more than we experienced most recently during the Covid-19 pandemic or at the beginning of the war in Ukraine.” Member states are haunted by both events – capitals ended up competing for limited health and energy supplies. The longer the war continues, the harder it may become…