Source: www.time.com

European Inability To Handle Donald Trump Could Cause Iran Crisis

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The European officials showed us that they don’t know how to handle Donald Trump. While trying to get on his better side, they ended up on the side that is ruining the Iran deal.

The Iran deal is a multilateral agreement which guarantees that Iran won’t be able to acquire nuclear weapons. Trump and his office are on a path to destroy this deal, and if this happens, it won’t be just another funny Trump blunder. It will have a devastating impact on Iran, region, and European politics. If this occurs after years of negotiating this agreement, it will be a sign that European countries have a weak stance compared to the one America has, and that they have little to no influence in the Middle East.

Agreement that has been signed by Iran on one side and the United States, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, and the European Union, on the other, forbids this Middle East country to stockpile enriched uranium, and thus they are rendered unable to produce nuclear weapons. With this deal, Iran gave supervision of its nuclear facilities to foreign inspectors which would make sure that no bomb is manufactured secretly. In exchange for this, all of the countries that signed the agreement lifted international sanctions imposed on Iran.

Source: thehilltalk.com

China and Russia firmly support this agreement, not because they are naive but because the alternatives are far worse. If this deal collapses and Iran gets sanctions once again, the first thing they will try to do is to get themselves armed with nuclear weapons. They have an example of how much respect you can get from world powers if you arm yourself with atomic arsenal just like North Korea did. From a country on outskirts of society, they became feared just because Kim Jong Un developed nuclear facilities and ballistic missile capacity.

If sanctions are imposed on Iran once again, the only way that US could stop them from following NK example would be to launch an invasion. This absolutely isn’t necessary since the Iran deal was signed by both International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. government which confirmed that they are working in compliance with it. The ones that are breaking the agreement are the United States of America who failed to provide Iran with economic benefits that were promised. Donald Trump refuses to aid Iran economically without an explanation, while one of his advisors even said that he would tear it up on May 12th.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com

In response to these treats European leading countries and their leaders, all went to the US to try and persuade Trump to do the right thing. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Theresa May, all had separate visits to the White House to try to persuade Trump to stick to the Iranian deal.

The right thing to do would be to threaten trump that EU will continue to respect the deal regardless of US stance. French president even suggested that a new deal could be struck if all parties agree. But, this is not necessary, the current deal is good enough, they should try to stay loyal one to another instead of trying to go in the direction Donald Trump wants.

Unfortunately, European countries showed weakness, and it now looks like Iran deal is about to be replaced or drastically changed. Asking Iran to modify some parts of the agreement wouldn’t be hard, but only if the United States respected their side of the contract. With them failing to comply, there’s no reason why would Iran want to recognize the deal other parties won’t. At this moment it would be hard to imagine that there isn’t something that Iran wants form the US. This is not a one-sided agreement, and Tehran will be sure that everyone understands this. If Trump indeed decides to tear it up, it could have a devastating effect on the entire region. The deal might have its flaws, but we hope that war is not a solution for this.

As one of the founders of foreignspolicyi.org Knjaz Milos tries to bring all the latest news regarding politics. He loves history and is passionate about writing.
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