Tag Archives: foreign policy

Europe, EU, and Iran

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Walter Russell Mead had an op-ed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal wherein he suggested that, while Europe…is dismayed…with President Donald Trump, they still need us, as we need them.  There are, though, a couple of remarks that want response.

The Europeans should have checked the relevant clauses in the American Constitution, assessed the state of congressional sentiment, and realized that Mr Obama simply lacked the authority, political or constitutional, to commit the country permanently to such an agreement.

The Europeans knew—and know—this stuff full well. They’re just desperate for Iran’s post-JCPOA nuclear-armed missiles to fall elsewhere than Europe and hoping that their continued appeasement today might achieve that.

The Trump administration’s apparent indifference to European concerns….

Never mind that European leadership is utterly indifferent to the concerns of the US. European concerns are all that matters. Especially regarding those Iranian missiles and how much we owe Europe.

More Mindsets

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Iran says that not only are Germany, France, and Great Britain not doing enough to satisfy the demands it’s made as a quid pro quo for staying in the nuclear weapons deal.  All of the EU must pay some vig.  Here’s Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif:

With the exit of the United States from the nuclear deal, the expectations of the Iranian public towards the European Union have increased….

That’s one mindset; unfortunately, it’s not unique to Iran: we exist, therefore, you owe.

Here’s another Iranian mindset:

The cascade of decisions by EU companies to end their activities in Iran makes things much more complicated[.]

The EU must take concrete supplementary steps to increase its investments in Iran. The commitments of the EU to apply the nuclear deal are not compatible with the announcement of probable withdrawal by major European companies[.]

Iranian businesses are completely under the control of the Iranian government.  Therefore, the companies of other nations must be controlled by those nations’ governments.  Those nations’ companies, therefore, must be required by their respective government masters to do business with Iran (through companies in Iran).

And this mindset from Germany’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas:

Giving it up means entering a completely uncertain future as far as the question of nuclear weapons in Iran is concerned.

It’s not really about Iran; it’s about our own original security interests, German as well as European.

Because not paying the vig would make Iran angry.  The EU wouldn’t like Iran when it’s angry.

Oh yeah, there’s one more mindset in play here.  Iran knows the mindset of the European signatories to the Iran nuclear weapons deal and how desperate those nations are to keep on Iran’s good side.  Iran is playing on that desperation to extort more goodies in return for Iranian pretty words of compliance.

Mindset

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Here’s the new US offer regarding the Iran nuclear weapons deal; we’ll soon see pretty clearly the mindsets of Germany, France, and the UK.  And of Iran.

Iran must

  • end nuclear weapons development in perpetuity
  • stop all uranium enrichment
  • never preprocess plutonium
  • allow nuclear unqualified access to all sites throughout the country
  • withdraw all forces from Syria
  • end support for militant groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, youths militia and Taliban in Afghanistan, and the IRGC Quds Forces
  • stop sending arms to the Houthi militia in Yemen
  • release all US citizens
  • cease threats to destroy Israel
  • stop missile launches
  • stop development of nuclear-capable missiles
  • respecting Iraqi government sovereignty

In return, the US would

  • be willing to lift all economic sanctions
  • restore full diplomatic and commercial ties with Iran
  • allow it to access advanced technology
  • support modernization of Iranian economy
  • help it reintegrate into the global financial system

Big gains for Iran in recompense for serious Iranian behavior.

So: do the European parties to the existing nuclear weapons deal want stability and prosperity in the Middle East, or do they prefer appeasing Iran?  Do they care about Israel’s prosperity and safety in a nuclear weapons free Middle East, or do they prefer appeasing Iran?

Do they accept the terms on offer or have concrete, viable counteroffers (vis., include a demand for release of all British citizens), or…?

Selling Out Ukraine

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Russian President Vladimir Putin a few days ago in the Russian city of Sochi, which is next door to Russia-partitioned Georgia and a short Black Sea hop from Russian-occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine.  While the two talked of many things: of cease fires—and peace keepers—and pipelines—of Iran—and deals—and things—and why the region is boiling hot (they didn’t get to flying pigs), one thing they discussed jumped out at me.  Deutsche Welle cited Merkel as insisting that

…the Minsk accord was the “only basis” to achieve peace in eastern Ukraine….

The Minsk accord (Minsk Protocol) is a 2014 “agreement” among Ukraine, Russia, and a rebel gang calling themselves Donetsk People’s Republic that implemented a cease fire in Ukraine’s Donbass region, comprised of the oblasts Donetsk and Luhansk on Ukraine’s border with Russia.  The accord codified Russia’s occupation of those two oblasts and the resulting partition of Ukraine with the rebel gang fronting for Russia.  The accord carefully did not address Russian-occupied Crimea.

Merkel plainly has walked away from the much prior (1994) Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.  This agreement consists of three included agreements that guarantee the territorial and political integrity of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, and it was signed by the US, the UK—and Russia.  The core of the Budapest Memorandum consists of these six guarantees as they pertain to Ukraine:

  1. Respect Ukrainian independence, sovereignty, and the existing borders
  2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine
  3. Refrain from using economic pressure on Ukraine in order to influence its politics
  4. Seek immediate UN Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, “if [it] should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used”
  5. Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Ukraine
  6. Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments

This is Germany’s sellout of Ukraine.  We need to start correcting our own failure regarding the Budapest Memorandum.  I’ve written elsewhere of the need for a NATO-like mutual defense pact among the US, the Baltic States, Poland, and Ukraine, among others in eastern (and eventually northern) Europe.  It’s time to get a move on.

“Iran deal: The European Union’s ugly options”

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That’s the headline of a Deutsche Welle piece regarding the impact on Europe of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) Executive Agreement that sought to codify Iran’s “right” to obtain nuclear weapons, if Iran were to have only a little patience and wait until the Agreement’s blocks, such as they are, expire in a few years.

Then Ten Schultz, the author of the article, opened with this statement.

The United States’ withdrawal from the Iran deal, despite the personal pleadings of Europe’s most powerful politicians, has provided one more example that President Donald Trump has no hesitation in dismissing European interests and trans-Atlantic concerns.

Of course, it couldn’t possibly be the case that Europe’s most powerful politicians have no hesitation in dismissing American interests and trans-Atlantic concerns.  No, of course not: those worthies are lily-pure.

Schultz then touts his false choice:

…stand up to Trump in efforts to preserve the deal…or to acquiesce to whatever Washington wants, even if it means abandoning a UN-approved agreement they brokered and believe in.

Never mind that for 16 months Trump has been trying to get those most powerful politicians to negotiate to shore up the deal and fill its glaring gaps and that those worthies have steadfastly refused to negotiate.  It’s certainly true that French President Emmanuel Macron came to DC offered pretty words about wanting to satisfy three of Trump’s four pillars that would have done the shoring up.  It’s also true that German Chancellor Angela Merkel came to DC to insist personally that the US stay with the deal.  Macron had nothing, though, other than his pretty words.  He had no concrete proposals to offer—just that willingness to keep talking in lieu of acting.  Merkel didn’t even have that much.

The UN? That’s just a debating society for politicians with nothing else to do with their countries’ payroll money.  It’s certainly been unwilling to do anything serious about Iran’s threats—and lately outright attacks—against Israel, or about Iran’s missile attacks on Saudi Arabia via their client terrorists in Yemen (itself wracked by an Iranian-caused and supported civil war).

That debating society refuses, also, to deal with Iran’s active missile development program (for which the Yemen launches serve as excellent OT&E evaluations).  Keep in mind that, for all of Iran’s future nuclear weapons—they could build dozens of them—those bombs are useless without a means of delivering them to Iran’s targets.  Missiles are a central such means.  Oh, and this: the most powerful politicians’ UN also has barred Iran from doing missile development.  Those politicians are conveniently silent about that.

And never mind that Iran has never signed the Obama Agreement.

No, it’s all Trump’s fault.  It’s all America’s fault.

We had enough of that during Obama’s eight years.  It’s about time we regained our willingness to act unilaterally when our allies won’t even talk seriously with us about joint action.