Carney talks de-escalation with Trump, as Belgian PM offers no sympathy for Iran

There was little sympathy for Iran and reluctant backing for regime change among some European leaders, following the weekend airstrikes by the United States on Iran's nuclear facilities.

On Monday, newly minted conservative Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever described Iran as an "evil regime" and a sponsor of terrorism throughout the Middle East and Europe.

He spoke to Canadian journalists following a Second World War commemoration event at the Antwerp Schoonselhof Military Cemetery, where he and Prime Minister Mark Carney laid wreaths to remember the fallen.

Carney, in a social media post early Monday, said he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump overnight about "de-escalating the conflict in the Middle East." The two leaders talked about the weekend's events and also the upcoming NATO Summit.

De Wever, however, took a harder line and spoke about a foiled Iranian-sponsored terrorism plot, where the suspect was headed to Paris, but arrested on Belgian soil — something that prompted retaliation from the regime in Tehran.

"Iran is the big sponsor of terrorism," De Wever said. 

"Without Iran, there would have been no Hamas. Without a Hamas, not a 7th of October. Without the 7th of October, [not] another war in Gaza," he said. "Without Iran, there wouldn't be Hezbollah, there wouldn't be Houthis. So it's a hard regime to feel sorry for."

Trump, in a post on his Truth Social media platform, suggested he might welcome the toppling of the Iranian government, but insisted the weekend attacks — which saw the three Iranian nuclear sites hit with missiles and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs — were not intended to bring about "regime change."

For his part, De Wever said, as a believer in the rule of law, it's unfortunate that the situation has come to a point where military action was required to stop Iran's nuclear program.

"It would be best if there would be a regime change in Iran, but … you would prefer that it would be a democratic process or another process" that doesn't start with bombing, De Wever said.

One defence expert said that kind of reaction shouldn't be surprising, because of the long history of tension with the hard-line regime in Iran.

"I think you might have European leaders publicly calling for restraint, but privately, very at ease that an extremist-led regime that was within striking distance of Europe wasn't able to develop up to 10 nuclear weapons that they could mate with ballistic missiles and hold Europe hostage," said Benjamin Jensen, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies in remarks made ahead of the U.S. strikes.

Jensen cautioned, however, there might be a limit to the support of Trump's actions.

"If those attacks, though, spread to targeting leaders and a wider rollback of Iranian military capability, it creates the risk of second- and third-order effects that would really cause concern in Europe," he said.