Obama has backing from EU for Iran plan, but not at home
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems close to ordering a general mobilisation of his country’s military, and Republicans in the US are preparing for a ferocious battle with President Barack Obama’s administration, in the wake of the framework nuclear agreement with Iran.
Yet the framework deal has been almost universally welcomed in Europe. What accounts for this disconnect within the West over a key regional and global threat?
Several factors are at work. One, certainly, is that Europe — or, more precisely, the UK, Germany, and France — has been engaged in the talks with Iran for more than a decade. Even as former US president George W Bush branded Iran a part of an “axis of evil”, these key EU members insisted that diplomacy was better than war.
Step by step, the European approach has been vindicated. Critical to that outcome, of course, were reports by the US intelligence community that all the evidence pointed to Iran having long ago — in 2003 — abandoned concrete plans to develop a nuclear weapon.
It is easy to see why the Iranians would have done so. So long as Saddam Hussein, who had launched a brutal eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s, and whom influential Westerners openly accused of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, remained in power, the Iranian government’s plan to develop nuclear weapons followed a certain realist logic. Once the US military ousted Saddam’s regime in 2003, Iran’s most acute security threat vanished.
Moreover, there has long been a tactical difference between US and European policies towards Iran’s nuclear program. At times, the US seemingly sought to eradicate any knowledge of nuclear technology from a country of which it is deeply suspicious, whereas the European approach was to seek reliable assurances that Iran would never develop a nuclear weapon.
At the end of the day, the US recognised that any realistic policy needed European support, while Europeans saw preventing a rush to war by the US or Israel as a central policy objective.
It should also be said that Europeans have never been overly impressed with America’s hardline approach towards that other charter member of the axis of evil, North Korea, and its nuclear ambitions. Refusing to negotiate with the North Korean regime, and imposing the most stringent sanctions on it, has not stopped it from either acquiring nuclear weapons or accelerating its development of both nuclear and missile technologies.
Among the significant issues that need to be sorted out before the end-of-June deadline for reaching a final deal with Iran is to agree on the details of the gradual suspension, and eventual repeal, of economic and diplomatic sanctions against the country. While this will be the subject of a fierce political battle in the US, it is likely that the EU will be far more willing to move ahead.
Indeed, Europe has sound reasons to lift the restrictions on Iranian oil exports. Additional supplies of oil to global markets will keep prices down or depress them further.
Apart from the economic gain for Europe’s economies, low oil prices yield important strategic benefits — particularly with respect to constraining Russian president Vladimir Putin’s revisionist ambitions in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Needless to say, the US and Europe should stick to a common approach on the sanctions issue. Were a more militant policy approach by the Republican-controlled US Congress to prevail, America might well find that it loses the ally that makes the key difference for the sanctions’ success. Indeed, on this issue, the US might rapidly find itself isolated from all other global actors.
Europe is certainly not naive about the nature of the Iranian regime. France, with its historically strong convictions on issues concerning nuclear proliferation, has taken a particularly firm stance during the talks.
Europe is also acutely aware of the consequences of the rapid increase in violent conflict and suffering in its immediate neighbourhood; indeed, Europeans see those consequences daily in the flood of refugees trying to reach its shores. Another war in the Middle East is clearly not in its interest.
Finally, Israel is a key factor underlying the differences between the US and Europe when it comes to Iran. Though Netanyahu’s shrill words still have an attentive audience in the US, most of Europe regards his position as being only a little short of ridiculous.
Thus, it is nearly certain that, assuming a final agreement with Iran is reached in June, Europe’s backing for it will be unanimous — or close to it — and that it will be eager to support Obama in his battle with opponents of the deal at home.
The framework agreement has vindicated Europe’s approach to resolving the nuclear dispute. The West has every reason to maintain that approach in the months ahead.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
