Europe is wrong to follow Donald Trump’s strategy. We are open to diplomacy and a new deal over our nuclear programme, but sanctions must go
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or more than two decades, Europe has been at the heart of the ongoing, manufactured crisis over my country’s peaceful nuclear programme. In many ways, the European role has reflected the state of broader international power relations. Once a moderating force aspiring to restrain a belligerent America with maximalist aims in our region, Europe is today enabling the excesses of Washington.
Last week, Britain, France and Germany – or the E3 – said they had activated the process to “snap back” UN sanctions on Iran. The mechanism was set up to penalize significant non-performance under the 2015 nuclear deal signed by Iran, the E3, the US, China and Russia.
The E3’s gambit lacks any legal standing, chiefly because it ignores the sequence of events that led Iran to adopt lawful remedial measures under the nuclear deal.
