Iran

 Washington, DC Trump, believe it or not, is smarter than the last two presidents, who started fires they couldn't extinguish Donald Trump has an itchy trigger finger, and his name is John Bolton. The President’s national security adviser is a lifelong war hawk who, unlike Trump, was a diehard supporter of the Iraq War. Now Bolton has Iran in his crosshairs. He’s not the only member of the administration drawing a bead on the mullahs. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is also a throwback to the mentality of the George W. Bush years of high misadventure in the Middle East. But Trump, believe it or not, is smarter than the last two presidents, who started fires they couldn’t extinguish in Iraq and Libya.

The Europeans always held an inkling that sooner or later, a time would come when an impatient Washington would announce to the world that any country or entity buying or dealing with Iranian crude oil would be kicked out of the US financial system. The threat of US sanctions hung in the air like a Sword of Damocles, a warning to governments in Europe and Asia to tread lightly.   And, sure enough, the Trump administration’s patience has finally run. On April 22, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo walked up to the State Department podium and announced that Washington would no longer tolerate overseas purchases of Tehran’s crude. “Today I am announcing that we will no longer grant any exemptions,” Pompeo said.

When the migrant crisis started, about three years ago, it was seen as a mainly Syrian affair. Caught in the crossfire between Bashar al-Assad and sundry jihadist groups, ordinary Syrians were heading for Europe, part of the largest mass movement of people since the second world war. But as we now know, that analysis was wrong. Or rather, it was only one facet of the historical migration phenomenon that was unfolding then and still is today. As a reporter, I hit the migrant trail, following the new arrivals by foot, bus, train and ferry through the Greek islands and the Balkans. I heard many languages besides Arabic, among them Pashto, Urdu, Bengali and even French (spoken by a Congolese family I encountered at the Serbian--Hungarian border).

It says something about the level of political discourse in America that Donald Trump decided to trumpet sanctions on Iran not with a speech, but a Twitter meme in reference to Game of Thrones. 'Sanctions are coming,' he says - in a picture that might be funny if it were not so serious. The White House is, in its head, playing out a drama where it imposes sanctions and brings the Ayatollahs to heel. In reality, things are working out very differently. When it comes to the goal of containing Iran, Trump is indeed living in a fantasy land. The date in Trump's tweet is 5 November, the day America ratchets up already devastating economic sanctions against Iran, following Washington’s unilateral withdrawal in May from the nuclear treaty brokered by Barack Obama.

The European Union finds itself in a bind. Donald Trump's reintroduction of sanctions against Iran has left European diplomats desperately scrambling to salvage twelve years of nuclear diplomacy. On Friday, Jean-Claude Juncker underlined the EU's commitment to keeping the deal alive, saying that 'Europeans must keep their word and not give in to a change of mood, just because others are doing so'. The EU has its work cut out, but is using every tool in its arsenal to prevent Trump from undoing its efforts. A blocking statute previously levied in the 1990s has been updated and re-initiated, allowing European companies doing business with Iran to recover damages in court. Last month, Brussels provided Tehran with £15m of aid to help offset the impact of US sanctions.

President Trump has ended US participation in the Iran deal and imposed sanctions. No doubt this is annoying to the British and other Europeans who mistakenly helped devise it, but why are they — especially we — clinging to it still? Without the United States, it cannot work. Trump’s move is supported by our allies in the Middle East — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Israel — who are constantly threatened by Iranian-backed terrorism. Inside Iran, once again (but little reported), people seeking freedom and work are protesting, yet we actively support a regime which has, for 40 years, been bitterly hostile to our interests and way of life.

On Monday, August 6, the long-arm of the U.S. Treasury Department reached into Europe and violently shook the continent. The first wave of U.S. secondary sanctions on entire sectors of the Iranian economy are now back in force, which means major European conglomerates and large-sized businesses have a potentially existential choice to make. Do we continue to do sign deals in Iran that Washington now explicitly prohibits? Or do we take the path of least resistance by removing our money from the Iranian market and saving ourselves the trouble of billions of dollars of U.S. fines, billions more in asset freezes, and severe damage to the company’s reputation?