Classic Europe: Appeasement at all costs

To understand the bizarreness of the European Union’s almost-automatic response to Israel’s revelation of Iran’s nuclear weapons archive, we have to go back to July 14, 2015. In the early afternoon, following intensive, painstaking negotiations, EU foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif emerged side by side to read a joint statement in English and Farsi affirming the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal.

An overly ecstatic Mogherini and her Iranian colleague spoke about a “historic day” and stressed that “with courage, political will, mutual respect and leadership, we delivered on what the world was hoping for: a shared commitment to peace and to join hands in order to make our world safer.”

Since that day, this mutual commitment to peace has been seen in Syria and Yemen, where Iran has taken part in bloodbaths capable of igniting a regional conflagration at any given moment.

The joint statement failed to mention, explicitly or implicitly, Iran’s past efforts to develop nuclear weapons. It essentially absolved Iran of having to address the existence of any military nuclear project and accepted Iran’s claim that all of its atomic endeavors were for civilian purposes. The historic event would have been very different had the joint statement included an Iranian declaration along the lines of: “In the past, we had a military nuclear program. We are giving it up for the sake of world peace.”

Now we are only left to ponder how “conditions for building trust” coincide with the official statements from several leading European governments and Mogherini that “the Iran nuclear deal is not based on trust about Iran’s intentions; rather it is based on tough verification, including measures that allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency unprecedented access to Iran’s nuclear program.”

Has Mogherini lost faith in the Iranians? And if not, why, and how will this affect ongoing compliance with the deal? And if the agency’s inspections are so meticulous, why did Mossad agents have to carry out a daring operation to find and extract Iran’s military nuclear archives? Why was this archive not handed over to the IAEA and destroyed, with even greater efficiency than the United Nations has thus far exhibited in destroying the Syrian regime’s weapons of mass destruction arsenal? After all, Iran promised it would not seek nuclear weapons under any circumstances.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu almost assuredly does not believe that European countries will change their stance on the Iran nuclear deal in the wake of Israel’s intelligence coup. In any case, Israel doesn’t want the deal to be completely shelved either, as this would allow Iran to immediately renew its program to develop nuclear weapons.

However, the Israeli revelation allows the Europeans to amplify pressure on Tehran to accept the idea of an addendum to the nuclear deal, at the request of the United States and Israel. U.S. President Donald Trump will either temporarily extend sanctions relief until an addendum is agreed or will renew sanctions until an addendum is formulated within a specific timeframe. Unlike the Europeans, Trump understands that the Iranians are making a mockery of everyone. The Europeans now have no choice but to admit this and help, even if involuntarily, remove the mask from the ayatollah regime.