President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has alienated one of his top right-wing allies in Europe.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, 49, came out against the American president’s military campaign in the Middle East as she delivered remarks to the Italian parliament in Rome on Wednesday, joining a growing chorus of European leaders who have criticized Trump’s war.
Meloni said that the Iranian regime should not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons at the risk of triggering an arms race with “dramatic repercussions” on global security. But, she also warned that the war on Iran was part of a growing trend of interventions “outside the scope of international law.”
The Italian leader also voiced concern over the strike on a school in southern Iran that killed at least 175 people, many of whom were children.
“I express my strong condemnation of the massacre of girls at the school in Minab in southern Iran,” she said, urging accountability for the deadly strike.
A preliminary inquiry found that the Feb. 28 strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school was caused by a targeting mistake by the U.S. military, which was attacking an adjacent Iranian base that the school used to be part of, according to The New York Times.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he doesn’t know about the strike, and has also claimed that Iran was actually responsible. That assertion hasn’t been supported by members of his own administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten have all expressed opposition to the conflict launched by the U.S. and Israel.
Sánchez has been the most outspoken, warning that “you can’t respond to one illegality with another because that’s how humanity’s great disasters begin.” He refused to let the U.S. use Spanish military bases to launch attacks on Iran, prompting Trump to threaten to “cut off all trade” with Spain.
Both Jetten and Macron have described the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran as outside the framework of international law.
Trump, 79, has long been chummy with Meloni, whom he once called “beautiful” mid-speech last October.
“Now, if you use the word ‘beautiful’ in the United States about a woman, that’s the end of your political career. But I’ll take my chances,” he said, turning to Meloni. “You won’t be offended if I say you’re beautiful, right? Because you are.”
That relationship appears to be on the rocks, after the Italian daily La Repubblica reported last month that Meloni only learned of the attack on Iran as it was happening.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday.
