Estonia foreign minister supports US Israel Iran strikes but questions Trump administration endgame

Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna says the United States and Israel are right to attempt regime change in Iran, but has questioned the Trump administration’s goals and timeframe for the war.

Mr Tsahkna will arrive in Australia early on Tuesday morning to discuss deepening security and economic ties.

Israel and the United States’ sudden bombing of Tehran more than a week ago shocked and divided European nations, including traditional ally the UK, whose Prime Minister Keir Starmer has questioned attempting “regime change from the skies”.

But Mr Tsahkna said that Estonia supported Israel and the United States, targeting the Iranian regime.

He said the Iranian regime was bad for global security, underlined by the former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s support for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Khamenei’s son 56-year-old son Mojtaba Khamenei has been named his successor.

Mr Tsahkna said Iran’s use against its neighbours of Shahed drones, the same type supplied to Russia to kill Ukrainians, had been an eye-opening experience for some.

“The Iranian regime has been one of the main supporters for Russia (in) the aggression against Ukraine and in that regard, yes, we are politically supporting, but we are not a part of this war there,” he said, speaking exclusively to the Latika Takes podcast for The Nightly.

“What we need to see is that this regime will be weaker or even changed by the Iranian people.”

But he questioned what the United States’ end-goal was and when it would be achieved, citing the economic shock the war could cause the global economy and energy prices.

But he said that the global community had been exposed to Ukraine’s reality following Iran’s attacks on its neighbours, something Iran sought to apologise for, although it has not stopped entirely its drone and missile attacks on others in the region.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has sent Ukrainian experts to the Gulf to help them take down Iranian drones. The Pentagon has also requested Ukraine’s help, despite no longer supplying Kyiv with weapons to fight Ukraine unless Europe pays for them.

President Zelensky said that Iran appeared to have been deprived of its ability to send missiles to Russia but warned that the focus had shifted to the Middle East.

“I hope the war will not be long, not only because I’m worried about Ukraine but also because every human life lost or destroyed is a tragedy,” President Zelensky said.

“Meanwhile, we don’t see progress in peace negotiations. If a lasting peace or a ceasefire are not negotiated during the first days of the conflict, there is a big risk of its prolongation.

“This will definitely have influence on the situation in Ukraine. Less focus means less support. Less support means less air defence.”

Mr Tsahkna said the Iranian and Iranian-backed retaliatory attacks on the Gulf and NATO member Turkey and EU member Cyprus had opened eyes.

“The good part is that now everybody understands that Ukraine is not only able to defend itself but also delivers the security and military capabilities,” Mr Tsahkna said.

“The second thing is that, Putin (for) all these years has been a mob chief offering protection to other dictators but what we have witnessed during the last years is that his friends are out of office.

“Assad in Syria is out. Venezuela — Maduro is in prison. Now, the Iranian leadership — they are dead and I think that it is harming heavily President Putin and Russia’s authority.”

Mr Tsahkna praised the support for Ukraine, given the distance between Europe and Australia.

He said he was keen to deepen cooperation between Australia’s mining giants and supply to Estonia’s rare magnets industry to help establish rival supply chains to China’s dominance of the sector.

He strongly backed the United States and Israel attempting regime change in Iran, although he expressed fears that the war would both take attention away from the conflict in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, and that US air defence stocks would be depleted.

This would make it harder for Europe and countries like Australia to buy on Ukraine’s behalf through the NATO PURL scheme.

But he said the war in Iran has exposed two things that were upsides for global security.

“Now we see that Iran is not able to support Russia anymore, so it’s about China, which is really, really behind Russia, economically and politically,” he said.

”Even if they’re not practically part of that, they are enabling it economically — they are giving more and more technologies for the Russian war machine.

“I was in, last November, in China, I had a bilateral visit there and I had a long meeting with the Chinese foreign minister and I was very clear about that as well.

“If China wants to stop the war, there’s only one phone call to Kremlin. Because China is owning Russia more and more economically and also politically, and now we see that Iran is not able to support Russia anymore.

“Even if China is talking publicly that they are following international law and the United Nations Charter and so on, if they want to have a peace, really in Ukraine, then it’s very easy to have one phone call and cut the support for Ukraine for Russia and Putin will be in trouble within a couple of days.”

He dismissed China’s excuses for not stopping the war as typical “rhetoric” and “cynical policy” from the CCP but said that it was also the reality.

“I said very clearly to my colleague as well, that if you want to have good relations with Europe, then you need to understand that Russia is an existential threat for us. And if your friend is having existential threat from somebody else and you’re supporting that, then you cannot have trustful relations, it’s impossible.”

He said he did not fear taking Ukraine’s case to China because Estonia had made a decision years ago to cut CCP-backed technologies and investments in critical infrastructure years ago.

Mr Tsahkna’s native Estonia is a tiny Baltic state with a population of around 1.3 million, a size smaller than the city of Adelaide.

Having been formerly occupied by the neighbouring Soviet Union until its collapse, Estonia is one of NATO and the EU’s biggest champions of Ukraine.

Estonia already spends around 5 per cent of its actual military capability, as opposed to the new NATO target that requires countries to achieve 3.5 per cent spending and a further 1.5 per cent on associated infrastructure by 2035.