Europe out of touch with countries in the Middle East on Iran policies

Jerusalem Post:

US Vice President Mike Pence chastised European powers on Thursday for resisting the Trump administration's campaign of maximum pressure on Iran, addressing a conference in Warsaw largely boycotted by EU nations.

Israel and Gulf Arab states made a rare public show of unity at the conference. But Great Britain and Italy were the only two EU nations in attendance. Others– including France, Germany, and the EU's high representative for foreign affairs– declined to send high level officials to the ministerial, protesting the tone of a conference they claimed was designed to undermine a nuclear deal with Tehran they continue to abide.
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"Sadly, some of our leading European partners have not been nearly as cooperative," Pence said on Thursday. "In fact, they have led the effort to create mechanisms to break up our sanctions."

Indeed, EU powers have been working on a mechanism that would help their businesses circumvent secondary US sanctions. The Iran nuclear agreement, brokered in 2015, called on parties to the deal to encourage local businesses to invest in the Iranian economy.

But US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal last year, reimposing all US sanctions on Iran that had been in place before the agreement– and then some. EU nations have recoiled at the policy.

"The time has come for our European partners to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and join with us," Pence told the Warsaw summit on security in the Middle East, which, despite controversy, gathered 60 countries in the Polish capital. "It is an ill-advised step that will only strengthen Iran, weaken the EU and create still more distance between Europe and the United States."

The EU mechanism was conceived as a way to help match Iranian oil and gas exports against purchases of EU goods. However, those ambitions have been scaled back, with diplomats saying that, realistically, it will be used only for trade, for example of humanitarian products or food, allowed by Washington.

European diplomats at the conference rejected Pence's accusations: "We strongly disagree," a diplomat from a major European power said. "We want to push Iran to good results and don’t want to push Iran outside of its nuclear commitment."
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The European pretensions that Iran is a peace partner are ill-founded.  It is still the leading state sponsor of terrorism and its proxies are actually participating in genocidal attacks in Yemen and attempts is Israel.  Iran is a country dominated by Islamic religious bigots with dreams of world conquest.  The missiles they are developing will put Europe in line for future nuclear blackmail.

The Europeans are still clinging to the same illusions that Obama had in negotiating the bad deal.