With bitter memories of the catastrophic war in Iraq, European
Union (EU) members seem united in opposing the United States’ effort to provoke
Iran into a shooting war. However, flat refusal to Washington appears a
difficult decision for the EU members. Initially, Britain expressed that there
was no enhanced threat from Iran in Iraq and Syria, but expected to change
its opinion under the US pressure.
While Europeans were reluctant to confront Washington directly,
Britain officially agreed with the Americans and Germany and the Netherlands
suspended their troop training in Iraq. Germany subsequently said it was
planning to resume the training exercises.
“Every single European government believes that the
increased threat we’re seeing from Iran now is a reaction to the United States
leaving the Iran nuclear agreement and trying to force Iranian capitulation on
other issues,” said Kori Schake, a former Pentagon official who is now deputy
director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “They believe
that the U.S. is the provocateur and they worry that the U.S. is reacting so
stridently to predictable Iranian actions in order to provide a pretext for a
U.S. attack on Iran,” Ms. Schake said.
“It is different from the debate preceding 2003 Iraq war,
which split Europe in two,” said Tomas Valasek, the director of Carnegie Europe
and a former Slovak ambassador to NATO. “This is a case of all European
governments saying to Washington that this is insane, we shouldn’t be here, and
it’s your fault that we’re actually talking of war.”
The Europeans are trapped between Trump and Tehran, trying
to keep decent relations with Washington while committed to supporting the 2015
Iran nuclear deal that Trump mocked and then abandoned. Senior European
government officials say they believe that Trump does not want a major war in
the Middle East, but they also believe that Bolton does. They often cite a New
York Times opinion article by Bolton in 2015, when he said “To Stop
Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.”
European officials are puzzled by Trump’s insistence that he
simply wants to force Iran into new negotiations. Ms. Schake has rightly raised
two question: “Why, would Tehran concede or even value any deal done with the
president who just abandoned a nuclear deal so painfully negotiated with the
last American president? “Why would they trust us now after Trump pulled the
plug on the last thing they negotiated with Washington?”
The public position of European officials has been “maximum
restraint,” that is opposite to Washington’s stated policy of “maximum
pressure” on Tehran, including economic sanctions designed to block its
international trade, especially in oil, on which the economy depends.
Foreign ministers, including Britain’s Jeremy Hunt and
Germany’s Heiko Maas — have spoken about the dangers of escalation and
accidental war. “We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by
accident with an escalation that is unintended,” said Hunt.
Maas told German legislators that putting intense pressure
on Iran added to the risk of an unintended escalation. “What has happened in
recent days — acts of sabotage against ships or pipelines — are indications
that these dangers are concrete and real,” he said, referring to reports
that four oil vessels were recently attacked.
“The Iranians may have walked into a Washington hard-liner
trap,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former senior State Department official who is
now research director for the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Iran as
usual is sending messages and going up the escalator ladder one-eighth of a
step at a time, through proxies,” he said. “They’re following the script.
Iranian and US hard-liners have a toxic interaction and feed off each other.”
In the first gulf war, in 1990-91, the United States led a
broad multinational coalition; in the second, in 2003, the European “coalition
of the willing” was essentially reduced to Britain and Poland. Part of Europe’s
skepticism is rooted in that 2003 war, when there were charges of fake or
exaggerated intelligence, which continue to haunt the reputations of then-loyal
European leaders, such as former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and
former President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland.
“Every European politician who supported George W. Bush was
taken out and effectively executed,” Shapiro said. “Even in the UK, no way
there can be a repeat of that. If the US policy is in force, there will be no
European support.”
But the Trump administration — which has already strained
relations with Europe badly through unilateral moves over trade, climate change
and relations with Israel and Russia, let alone Iran — probably doesn’t much
care what the Europeans think.
US Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo came to Brussels and spoke to European foreign ministers about Iran
and American assessments of enhanced threat. For internal administration debates,
European may agree to tactical support or face a bitter choice, “Either you are
with us or against us.”
