Europe's Dangerous Ignoring in Washington and Middle East

The Middle East is in chaos, but the Europeans are not the unfortunate “US President Donald Trump's decision to kill the leader of the ruthless Iranian Kurdish force, Casem Sulejmani, has shocked leaders of the largest European countries.

Their efforts to save the comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), or as the 2015 nuclear agreement is officially known, have waned since Iran declared on January 5th that it is abandoning all restrictions on uranium enrichment.

And in fact, it was unlikely that this deal would survive, since Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018. The death of Solomon has strengthened the influence of the conservative line in Tehran. From the beginning, they did not like the nuclear agreement with great powers.

As for the European reaction to the Iraqi parliament's decision to order American troops from the country, coupled with Iran's growing influence in Baghdad,

They were content with ritualizing common rhetorical statements.

Britain, France and Germany, signatories of the JCPOA, called a special summit of European Union foreign ministers, stressing the need for “de-extradition”

of the situation, and expressing their “concern” deeply, an expression that actually makes zero sense.

But the potential outbreak of the crisis, which is unfolding before their eyes, is a symptom of a much deeper disease. And its consequences will either shake Europe deep because of its strategic inpower, or reduce it to a simple object of external, kind or malicious influences.

First of all, it is a symptom of the deep crisis where transatlantic relations are present today. It has nothing to do with Donald Trump's views on NATO. Even the Early Ones

Its assets were high on the military competence of European alliance members.

The point is that Europeans, collectively grouped in the European Union, do not seem to be

is important to the current American administration.

One of the reasons, is how a bloc, Europeans cannot design power in its traditional sense. Nor can they design unity among themselves when it comes to a common perception of external threats. Nor can they protect their own interests.

If they could do that, France and Germany would have joined the US Operation Sentinel, now known as International Marine Security Construction, launched in July 2019, to counter threats to international transport at the Hormuz Strait.

Protecting shipping routes is vital for the flow of European, American and global trade. But hindering the participation of Great Britain in the US-led mission, other European countries refused to join it, at a time when some were registered in France's competitive initiative without Germany.

Perhaps cooperation with the Americans would have sent the wrong signal to Iran: the one Europeans are already leaning from Trump. But keeping an equal distance between the United States and Iran over disputes over the nuclear agreement, or a particular policy when Iran attacks oil tanks, confirms what is wrong today with transatlantic relations.

The disturbing consequence of Solomon's murder is that it leaves Iraq even more vulnerable to Iranian influence on one side. And on the other hand, if they pull out American troops, they can

to give a golden chance of the so-called Islamic States re-organizing.

Whatever the case, the sovereignty the Iraqi Parliament argued was damaged by the American occupation would be just as damaged by the influence of Iran and ISIS. And Europe will not be able to escape the spectrum of terrorist attacks on American targets, with more refugee flows at its borders.

Above all, which players will now convince Iran to return to respecting the JCPOA, which was ultimately an attempt to stem the spread of deadly weapons? A nuclear Iran will change the region's geostrategic frameworks, with Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to name just a few who are terrified of such a scenario.

If even when American troops leave, Iraq's stability will be hung at the very edge. The military aid Germany gave to the Kurds, and the training that NATO gave the Iraqi army, will be suspended. Berlin and NATO have made safety of their personnel a priority.

If Iran wants to ensure the stability of Iraq, it will surely demand a high price for it. Tehran's growing role in the region, and its support of terrorist groups, should not lie to Europeans and Americans alike about any suspicion of the regime's intentions.

Contrary to the Trump administration, which cannot reconcile its desire to deal harshly with Iran, with its desire to completely abandon the region, the Iranian regime has a strategy. . . and its desired intentions: the governing position of the clergy, the keeping alive of his imperial project in the region, and keeping its enemies sworn in, including America, outside his neighborhood” -- says Williams Burns, president of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Jake Sullivan, associate in the North Atlantic “”.

With Vladimir Putin's growing influence in the East of Ukraine and Syria, in addition to his divisive influence in Europe, the new crisis in Iraq and Iran could give him a “diplomatic directory” more. Especially after Donald Trump has avoided diplomacy, and when Europeans still believe in it, despite the lack of leverages of influence and strategy. / Carnegie Europe ʹworld.al