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Spurned by Trump, Europeans ponder how to meet Iran ultimatum

By John Irish, Robin Emmott and Arshad Mohammed

 

FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump confer at the start of the first working session of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/John MacDougall/Pool/File Photo

 

PARIS/BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A day before Donald Trump's Jan. 12 ultimatum to "fix" the Iran nuclear deal, European powers met Iran's foreign minister to show support for it, but the effort failed to soften Trump's aversion to the accord, U.S. and European officials said.

 

The gathering in Brussels may even have reinforced the U.S. president's antipathy, according to three U.S. officials involved in the discussions.

 

Trump instead gave the European allies, Britain, France, Germany, and the U.S. Congress 120 days to come up with a tougher approach on Tehran or see U.S. sanctions reimposed, they said.

 

With Trump warning of a last chance for "the worst deal ever negotiated", Britain, France and Germany have begun talks on a plan to satisfy him by addressing Iran's ballistic missile tests and its regional influence while preserving the 2015 accord that curbed Iran's nuclear ambitions for at least a decade.

 

It is hard to say what might mollify the Trump administration, which is split between those who would like to tear up the agreement and those who wish to preserve it and which has said inconsistent things about its demands to keep the accord, U.S. and European officials said.

 

Under U.S. law, Trump must decide again whether to renew the U.S. sanctions relief every 120 days, giving Congress, as well as U.S. and European diplomats, until mid-May to see if there is a way to finesse the issue.

 

But the Brussels meeting has left European powers wary that whatever they agree, it may not be enough.

 

"We're going to work in the spirit that we're ready to talk about everything, from the nuclear accord to Iran's ballistic missiles," said a senior European diplomat. "But we want to compartmentalise the subjects; we're not going to mix them."

 

At stake is not just an historic accord negotiated - before Trump took office - by the United States, China, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and the European Union, and one that Europe sees as its biggest diplomatic achievement in decades.

 

A collapse of the nuclear deal could see a breakdown in the relations between the United States and Europe that have underpinned the West's security since World War Two, European diplomats and the senior U.S. official said, and could confirm Europe's fears that it can no longer count on U.S. leadership.

 

Britain, France, Germany and the EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, are adamant that the deal cannot be renegotiated, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also ruled that out this month, speaking at the United Nations.

 

Initial contacts between the three European powers in Washington, European capitals and at the EU's headquarters in Brussels suggest that Paris, London and Berlin will present a package of measures to the United States to allay Trump's concerns about Iran but that do not reopen the nuclear accord.

 

BALLISTIC THREAT

 

The strategy could include threatening Iran with targeted economic sanctions if it does not agree to curtail its ballistic weapons arsenal, which the West believes contains longer-range missiles potentially capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

 

European diplomats favour creating a high-level working group with Iran to discuss the missile issue, while reminding Trump that NATO's ballistic missile defence shield in southeastern Europe will boast a new site in Poland this year.

 

Washington wants U.N. nuclear inspectors to be able to visit military sites as part of the International Atomic Energy Agency's verification of the nuclear deal. The IAEA says it does not distinguish between military and non-military sites and has repeatedly said Iran is honouring its commitments under the deal.

 

Diplomats say the IAEA has not yet inspected a military site, and if Washington wants it to do so it needs to provide new information showing that this is necessary.

 

For its part, Iran has said its military sites are beyond the IAEA's purview and repeatedly denied that its nuclear programme has military dimensions, namely to develop bombs.

 

Another part of the potential European strategy is pressure on Iran to rein in Middle East proxies such as Hezbollah, and to stop arming Houthi fighters combating government forces in Yemen's war, which has devastated the country.

 

There is discussion to push Iran to embrace U.N-backed peace talks for Syria, where Tehran is sharply at odds with the West in its support for President Bashar al-Assad and whose departure the United States and its EU allies have long sought.

 

That could dovetail with U.S. legislative efforts to change the nuclear deal's so-called sunset provisions as they expire from 2025, so that if Iran were eventually to launch a nuclear arms programme, U.S. sanctions would kick in again.

 

In the U.S. Congress, the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are working with the White House to write legislation they hope can meet Trump's demand to eliminate "the disastrous flaws" in the pact.

 

"Presented the right way, it could be just enough to allow Trump to claim a diplomatic victory and sign legislation from Congress," said a senior EU diplomat.

 

Mogherini will brief EU foreign ministers on Monday, while U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet his British and French counterparts in London and Paris this week on a trip where Iran "will dominate" many conversations, an aide said.

 

"RAGING DISAGREEMENTS"

 

While Britain, Germany and France appear united, Mogherini has so far been unwilling to consider EU sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missiles to avoid jeopardising the nuclear deal.

 

Iran already rejected a call in November by French President Emmanuel Macron for talks on its missiles, saying they were solely defensive in nature. "Their concept of dialogue is to explain that they are right," a Western diplomat said of Iran.

 

Britain, France and Germany also face a divided U.S. government - current and former U.S. officials said it is unclear whether Trump wants to save the pact or has set the Europeans and Congress an impossible task, giving him an excuse to end the deal and for someone to take the fall.

 

"There are these raging disagreements within the (Trump) administration," " said a former U.S. official. "While one group wants to keep the agreement, the other wants this outreach to the Europeans and the Congress to fail and to be able to blame it on them."

 

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin, Michelle Nichols in New York, Francois Murphy in Vienna, John Walcott and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; editing by Mark Heinrich, William Maclean)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-01-22

[ELVIS123456]

Trump is right to shut it all down.  Only liberals believe that they can negotiate a deal with a terrorist dictatorship - reality is that it doesn't work very often. Many many examples - Germany and Nth Korea just two. Those deals were not worth the paper it was written on.  Trying to avoid war by appeasement, does not work with despots and terrorist Governments.  Overthrowing them by using internal dissent sometimes does, and using war or the threat of war and destruction does too (Germany, Japan, Russia, etc etc).  Appeasement has very little success - and only liberals believe in it as the only approach to follow.

 

[Emster23]

Elvis per above never heard of nuke test ban treaty, ending atmospheric tests back at height of cold war? SALT agreement with evil USSR? ABM treaty?

 Deal with Iran was not "appeasement". You can figure it is a fair enough deal when both sides don't get all they want, but they get enough they can live with.

Knee jerk attacks against liberals are so boring... do you class Russia, China, etc (deal was multi lateral... look that up some time) as liberals?

[Trouble]

16 minutes ago, Emster23 said:

Elvis per above never heard of nuke test ban treaty, ending atmospheric tests back at height of cold war? SALT agreement with evil USSR? ABM treaty?

 Deal with Iran was not "appeasement". You can figure it is a fair enough deal when both sides don't get all they want, but they get enough they can live with.

Knee jerk attacks against liberals are so boring... do you class Russia, China, etc (deal was multi lateral... look that up some time) as liberals?

While you give some examples of successful agreements, IAEA acknowledges it has not yet inspected any military sites and claims the US needs to provide proof of something nefarious so they just bury their heads in the sand. Iran puts military sites not within the purview of inspections of the IAEA.  So right off the top there seems to be a problem with the deal when Europe wants to ignore inspecting sites and Iran won't allow them to do so. Iran just goes on and does what it wants and the outside is non the wiser.  The world takes the word of the Iranian government that it would not continue with development and we are unable to verify that because military sites are off limits. Some deal!   What did the world really get out of this deal if Iran can continue possible nuclear research on military sites without the ability to inspect?

[Emster23]

5 hours ago, Trouble said:

While you give some examples of successful agreements, IAEA acknowledges it has not yet inspected any military sites and claims the US needs to provide proof of something nefarious so they just bury their heads in the sand. Iran puts military sites not within the purview of inspections of the IAEA.  So right off the top there seems to be a problem with the deal when Europe wants to ignore inspecting sites and Iran won't allow them to do so. Iran just goes on and does what it wants and the outside is non the wiser.  The world takes the word of the Iranian government that it would not continue with development and we are unable to verify that because military sites are off limits. Some deal!   What did the world really get out of this deal if Iran can continue possible nuclear research on military sites without the ability to inspect?

I have no idea where you get your news, but it is off. “The IAEA clearly stated that Iran has granted inspectors all of the access the agency has requested. If Iran had blocked access, the P5+1, including the United States, would not have been able to say that Iran is complying with the accord.”

Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China and the European Union have all reaffirmed their commitment to it. Which is more likely: that all those countries are in conspiracy with Iran against their own self interests or that what you state is wrong?

Try reading this entire article from fact check. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/trump-irans-multiple-violations/

[Morch]

Interesting that while both the Iran and the US do distinguish between military and non-military sites, the IAEA does not. In a sense, this is an issue, because a whole potentially problematic section related to Iran's nuclear ambitions (and arguably, the most likely to have military applications) is not under the same level of control as other elements. That Iran is "honoring" its commitments is one thing, that the way commitments are formulated being possibly faulty is another.

 

I very much doubt that Trump would have managed a superior agreement, but this argument does not make the current agreement a perfect one. It was the best agreement managed under prevailing diplomatic conditions and constraints. Question is if an imperfect agreement is better than none at all (which could be applied for another Trump administration deal making episode, as in the Obamacare). As the OP says, not too clear what is the Trump administration's position on this - save the agreement (amended or otherwise) or toss it out the window (and what then?).

 

[boomerangutang]

Years ago, Israel launched a preemptive strike against an Iraqi N-processing plant. They may or may not have informed the US prior.  They sent 2 fighter jets at night, boom, blew the facility up. Luckily, Saddam did nothing to retaliate.  Note: Israel and Iraq were not at war at the time.

 

Am just inserting that, because if westerners can't come up with a deal with Iran, then Israel may take matters, again, in it's own hands, and do something rash unilaterally.  If so, with Iran, the Mullahs may not stand around with their hands in their pockets, like Iraq did.

 

Even if the Iran deal is flawed, a flawed deal with Iran is better than no deal at all. 

 

Trump is the last person on earth I would trust to put a good deal together.  He has proven dozens of times what a crappy deal-maker he is.  Europeans run circles around Trump in the deal making dept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Morch]

13 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

Years ago, Israel launched a preemptive strike against an Iraqi N-processing plant. They may or may not have informed the US prior.  They sent 2 fighter jets at night, boom, blew the facility up. Luckily, Saddam did nothing to retaliate.  Note: Israel and Iraq were not at war at the time.

 

Am just inserting that, because if westerners can't come up with a deal with Iran, then Israel may take matters, again, in it's own hands, and do something rash unilaterally.  If so, with Iran, the Mullahs may not stand around with their hands in their pockets, like Iraq did.

 

Even if the Iran deal is flawed, a flawed deal with Iran is better than no deal at all. 

 

Trump is the last person on earth I would trust to put a good deal together.  He has proven dozens of times what a crappy deal-maker he is.  Europeans run circles around Trump in the deal making dept.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Israel had the capability to seriously hamper Iran's nuclear ambitions by force, it had better windows of opportunity in the past. That, and the current Israeli leadership lack of resolve on such matters, do not indicate that such a confrontation is upcoming. 

 

As for them pesky details - the attack mentioned wasn't carried out at night time, there were more than two "fighter jets" involved, and "Israel and Iraq were not at war at the time" is not an apt description of relations between the countries at the time.

 

To put things in perspective - Iran is farther away than Iraq, nuclear sites are numerous, spread and well defended. And, of course, given the attack on Iraq's reactor, Iran is well aware of the possibility.

[stevenl]

8 hours ago, ELVIS123456 said:

Trump is right to shut it all down.  Only liberals believe that they can negotiate a deal with a terrorist dictatorship - reality is that it doesn't work very often. Many many examples - Germany and Nth Korea just two. Those deals were not worth the paper it was written on.  Trying to avoid war by appeasement, does not work with despots and terrorist Governments.  Overthrowing them by using internal dissent sometimes does, and using war or the threat of war and destruction does too (Germany, Japan, Russia, etc etc).  Appeasement has very little success - and only liberals believe in it as the only approach to follow.

 

You're correct in that the deal is not worth the paper it is written on.

 

But that is solely due to the USA not sticking to the terms.

[Morch]

1 minute ago, stevenl said:

You're correct in that the deal is not worth the paper it is written on.

 

But that is solely due to the USA not sticking to the terms.

 

The agreement had flaws since the start, before Trump's election. Which terms is the US not sticking to?

[boomerangutang]

4 hours ago, Morch said:

The agreement had flaws since the start, before Trump's election. Which terms is the US not sticking to?

To get an agreement at all was commendable.  It showed the diplomatic prowess of Obama, Kerry and the Europeans.  Look at where they started:  Wanting Iran to curtail its N program.

 

Imagine a group of countries going to France or UK or India or USA, or Japan, ....and saying "we want you to curtail your N program."    .....what sort of response would be expected?  They would say, "Heck no. What we do in our country is our business."

 

Expecting the agreement between western countries and Iran to be devoid of flaws is like expecting a football match to have no bruises or cuss words.  It's unrealistic.  

 

 

 

[Morch]

2 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

To get an agreement at all was commendable.  It showed the diplomatic prowess of Obama, Kerry and the Europeans.  Look at where they started:  Wanting Iran to curtail its N program.

 

Imagine a group of countries going to France or UK or India or USA, or Japan, ....and saying "we want you to curtail your N program."    .....what sort of response would be expected?  They would say, "Heck no. What we do in our country is our business."

 

Expecting the agreement between western countries and Iran to be devoid of flaws is like expecting a football match to have no bruises or cuss words.  It's unrealistic.  

 

 

 

 

This sentiment was expressed in a previous post.

The post you quoted was in response to this.

 

Nothing in your response actually addresses the context relevant to my second post - the flaws in the agreement preceded Trump, and not too clear which terms the US is not sticking to.