Wanting the Iran Nuclear Deal for the Wrong Reasons
by Majid Rafizadeh • July 9, 2022 at 5:00 am
The EU partly wants the deal so it can buy oil and gas from the Iranian regime.
The EU also appears to want the nuclear deal in order not to lose its other economic relationships and trade with the ruling mullahs of Iran. Despite US sanctions, European countries are still trading with Iran; the Biden administration has yet to hold them accountable.
According to the Financial Tribune, Germany is Iran's top trading partner, and Italy comes in second.
By reaching a nuclear deal, the Biden administration may think that it can claim a foreign policy accomplishment and a political victory, as the Obama administration did, by arguing -- falsely -- that it had finally curbed Iran's nuclear program and prevented the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, that was about as accurate as Obama's claim – which he repeated 37 times -- that "If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it."
After the 2015 nuclear deal, however, the ruling mullahs of Iran were not only gifted a newfound global legitimacy. The removal of sanctions also generated billions of dollars in revenue for Iran's military institution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as for Iran's militia and terror groups. The regime used those revenues to expand its influence throughout the region, especially in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq....The Iranian-armed Houthis ratcheted up their efforts to cause death and destruction in Yemen, and Hezbollah escalated its involvement and control of large swathes of Syrian territory. The region also saw a greater propensity for Houthi rocket launches at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, the deployment of thousands of Hezbollah foot soldiers in Syria, and the constant bombardment of southern Israel with Hamas rockets funded by Iran.
The objective of any nuclear deal with a rogue state ought to be anchored in completely and permanently halting that regime from obtaining nuclear weapons. The objective should not be to further empower and embolden it, or to facilitate it becoming a nuclear state.
It seems, nonetheless, that the Biden administration and the European Union have other motives. The EU partly wants the deal so it can buy oil and gas from the Iranian regime. The EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, surprisingly acknowledged this to the Financial Times:
"We Europeans will be very much beneficiaries from this [nuclear] deal, the situation has changed now. For us it was something... 'well, we don't need it', now it would be very much interesting for us to have another [oil and gas] supplier."
