EU: If Iran slaps you, turn the other cheek

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For the European middle powers, it’s in their economical interests to preserve the nuclear deal at all costs. Among others, French, Spanish and German companies were making tremendous benefits in the automobile, petrochemical and telecommunication sectors in Iran. And they have long since they turned their military activities into international expos and tradefaires for selling arms to Middle Eastern dictatorships, from Gadafi of Libya to Sisi of Egypt and of course the wealthy warlords of the Gulf—while relying on the US to do the global fight on their behalf. After all, Germany in particular has been criticized by its European counterparts for its restraint from military engagement.

This European expediency and shortsightedness, their reluctance in sharing burdens with the US, their leniency  towards Islamist organization in the name of multiculturalism and their genuflection to rogue states in the name of world peace, are elements, inter alia, that are driving the liberal international order to unravel, and eroding the long-lasting transatlantic cooperation.

It becomes clear to every observer over the course of the last few months, that the European Union is detaching itself gently from the US-led bloc, while venturing out into a dangerous pathway. Beginning from the nomination of a buddy-buddy with the Iranian regime and an aficionado of its ill-fated Islamic revolution, the Spaniard Josep Borrell, for the position of High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to its null and void statements regarding Iran continuous violations of the nuclear deal—sometimes those statements give even the impression of a tacit encouragement for Iran to continue in its line of provocations.

As much as this world looks complicated, important and inconceivable to us, it is also from another perspective no more than a tiny “Pale Blue Dot.” In the same way I used to look at world politics actors as not very different than those kids playing football in the back-streets of Casablanca. How big and glittering those names are: Federica Mogherini, Angela Merkel, Emanuel Macron, António Guterres… But no matter how experienced they are, how many degrees in political science they have acquired, how enlightened and magnificent their minds are—in the end, they are like those little players, exposed to emotional vulnerability, and motivated by human shortcomings and feelings of anger and dismay, grievances, personal revenge, short-term gains, conflict of interests and so forth. In a fog of this trivial skirmishes, they lose their vision and visibility, and with it the good judgment.

They can hate Trump’s guts as much as they want and his childish tweets; they may call him a racist, a bully, an ignorant, inept and divisive; they may leak as much secret cables criticizing his policies; but they should never forget that it is ultimately the US, their indispensable ally with whom they share their common values, in a world where other powers’ leaders are not merely rude or controversial, but rather savage tyrants and disguised criminals.

Here we see the Iranian Mullahs, a declared religious mafia, becoming champions at the international arena, lionizing their glorious threats, and insulting the international community. All the while the European powers look adrift and more willing to bow to Tehran nuclear extortion, deliberately undermining the US psychological warfare and pressure, and rendering it less effective by emboldening the Mullahs’ ideological resistance.

With the European reaching new lows in their passivity regarding Iran’s shortning its “breakout timeline” to the production of weapons-grade uranium, one is legitimately induced to contemplate if it is still valid to consider the European actors as real political and military powers or they have indeed converted themselves into a pitiful group of international merchants and marketeers at the Iranian bazaar?

For Israel the deal is undoubtedly a fatal catastrophe. Its dramatic effects are developing right at its doors. it provides the Iranians with both the time and the capability to build up a well-equipped anti-Semetic armies that are already engulfing Israel from every side of its boarders, and prepare them to a predetermined suicidal-style Jihad war against the Jews.

A sea of destructive missiles, rockets, drones, intelligence, logistics, and trained personnel were transported (since 2015, the year of the nuclear deal) from Iran through Sudan to Sinai and from there to Gaza, and through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon—on the shoulders of that deal. The Europeans know exactly where that arsenal is ultimately intended to land.

As technology advances quickly in terms of military and non-military devices, terror groups, like traditional armies, are making the most of it. The remotely piloted aircrafts were expansive assets couple of years ago, and only few armies were using them. Now, even the Houthies of Yemen are using them like toys in considerable quantities to attack Saudi Arabia’s airports, inflicting serious damages on civilians and properties. The same could be said about the drones in Gaza. Now Hamas, too, has those deadly toys, and as time goes by the costs drop, the terrorist manufacturers get familiar with the know-how of making them, and the production increases.

Once, in the 1930s, millions of helpless Jews across Europe relied on European powers to protect them from the Nazi. They let them down. Today, as history is testing them again, Europeans are showing signs that they were not sincerely altered by that painful experience.