Europe Has No Clue How to Handle an American Bully
Foreign Policy
By Stephen M. Walt
Let’s review the basics. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (as the Iran nuclear deal is formally known) is a multilateral agreement between Iran, the United States, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, and the European Union. It required Iran to severely reduce its enrichment capability and its stockpiles of enriched uranium, thereby rendering it incapable of producing a nuclear weapon. It also placed other restrictions on its nuclear infrastructure and established an unparalleled level of international inspections. Taken together, these measures ensure that Iran cannot get a bomb in secret or “break out” and obtain a bomb quickly. In exchange for these concessions, the other signatories agreed to lift international sanctions on Iran and allow it to gradually reintegrate itself into the international community.
The European states, Russia, and China all strongly support the agreement. Is this because they are naive? No, it’s because they understand that all the alternatives are worse, and that engaging with Iran is more likely to reduce the power of hardliners there than ostracizing it. Letting the nuclear deal collapse makes it more likely that Iran will eventually decide to sprint for the bomb, and more so when it sees the newfound respect that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un obtained once his country had developed a genuine nuclear and missile capacity of its own. To prevent Iran from imitating the North Korean example, the United States would have to launch yet another preventive war in the Middle East, with incalculable consequences for a region that has been convulsed by war since the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/02/europe-has-no-clue-how-to-handle-an-american-bully/
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