{"id":436762,"date":"2025-09-19T19:07:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T19:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/436762\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T19:07:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T19:07:29","slug":"europe-uses-iran-as-pawn-in-transatlantic-power-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/436762\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe uses Iran as pawn in transatlantic power play"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Nations Security Council today will reinstate via \u201csnapback\u201d all of the U.N. sanctions formerly lifted under the 2015 Iran<\/a> nuclear accord. This trigger comes from Germany, France, and the UK \u2014 the very powers that engineered the 2015 deal \u2014 and now they are extinguishing the final diplomatic exit ramp, consolidating a trajectory toward confrontation.<\/p>\n

As I suggested<\/a> when the E3 first activated the snapback mechanism, this is no longer about Iran\u2019s nuclear program; it is an EU stratagem to corral the U.S. into alignment over Ukraine:<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s deepening partnership with Russia<\/a> in the Ukraine war<\/a> has recast it, in Europe\u2019s eyes, as a direct threat. The EU\u2019s economic ties to Tehran are negligible after years of sanctions. Meanwhile, Europe\u2019s reliance on the transatlantic relationship\u2014military, political and economic\u2014is far greater than it was in 2003.<\/p>\n

In this context, escalation with Iran serves two European objectives. First, it punishes Tehran for aligning with Moscow, sending a message that supporting Russia comes with heavy costs. Second, it aligns Europe<\/a> with hawkish elements of the Trump administration<\/a>, at a time when transatlantic relations are under historic strain. For European leaders desperate to maintain American goodwill, Iran has become a convenient sacrificial offering.<\/p>\n

None of this is speculation. Germany\u2019s chancellor recently acknowledged that Israel<\/a>, by bombing Iran in June, \u201cis doing the dirty work for all of us.\u201d The remark was unusually candid. It underscored what many in European capitals privately concede: that Israel\u2019s military actions against Iran serve European interests by weakening a state now aligned with Russia.<\/p>\n

That is why I have long doubted the efficacy of courageous efforts to forestall the snapback. If one party is resolutely determined to trigger it for its own ends, then nuclear concessions alone are unlikely to suffice.<\/p>\n

Reportedly<\/a>, the Iranians have engaged directly with the U.S. and proposed a compromise: as an initial step, they would reclaim and dilute their stockpile of 60 % enriched uranium in exchange for a temporary postponement of the snapback deadline by a few months. During that interval, the U.S. should furnish ironclad guarantees that no military reprisals will be taken against Iran.<\/p>\n

Once Iran has retrieved the enriched uranium, the snapback provision should be abolished permanently; the uranium stockpile should be diluted to 20%; and the U.S. should lift the sanctions previously agreed upon. This would constitute a provisional accord, to be followed by negotiations for a comprehensive, final settlement. Other contentious issues \u2014 such as scope of enrichment and the intensity of IAEA inspections \u2014 will be deferred to the final deal.<\/p>\n

Rumors abound that the Trump administration will spurn the offer \u2014 since its strategy is premised on ratcheting up \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d sanctions, under the conviction that Iran is on the brink of collapse, and that just a further squeeze will produce results. The E3, for their part, intend to furnish Washington with snapback authority, hoping thereby to anchor a more hawkish U.S. policy toward Russia.<\/p>\n

Since Russia is more important to Europe than Iran, and since appeasing Israel is more important to Washington than avoiding confrontation with Iran, it appears that the substance of Iran\u2019s compromise seems moot.<\/p>\n

This situation echoes a similar negotiation in 2011, as I described in my book on Obama\u2019s nuclear diplomacy<\/a>: Turkey and Brazil succeeded in extracting Iranian acquiescence to U.S. demands to forestall U.N. sanctions. Yet unbeknownst to Brasilia and Ankara, the Obama administration had already cemented an understanding with Russia \u2014 one premised on Moscow agreeing to U.N. sanctions \u2014 and had reassured pro-Israel hawks in Congress that Iran would ultimately be sanctioned, no matter what.<\/p>\n

So, in their moment of triumph \u2014 having elicited a \u201cyes\u201d from Iran to U.S. demands after marathon negotiations \u2014 Obama spoiled the f\u00eate by repudiating the very deal he\u2019d urged Lula and Erdo\u011fan to procure. The talks with Tehran were a mirage; the true bargaining was among other actors, with the nuclear question serving merely as a gambit.<\/p>\n

Diplomacy to avert snapback gives the same impression. The real contest isn\u2019t over Iran\u2019s enrichment program, but between the U.S. and the EU over Russia, Ukraine, and the transatlantic relationship. Iran\u2019s nuclear dossier appears just a pawn in the courts of the E3. <\/p>\n

A version of this article originally appeared on Trita Parsi’s Substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Nations Security Council today will reinstate via \u201csnapback\u201d all of the U.N. sanctions formerly lifted under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,774,75708,148091,2663],"class_list":{"0":"post-436762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-iran-nuclear-program","14":"tag-qiosk","15":"tag-sanctions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115232534955325285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}