RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://jiss.org.il/en/mansharof-european-appeasement-of-iran-endangers-national-s

The EU’s insistence on preserving the nuclear agreement with Iran and its persistent efforts to establish a mechanism for evading American trade sanctions are encouraging Iran to escalate its subversion throughout Europe.

The European Union’s current policy is to preserve the nuclear agreement with Iran – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – even though the American administration, led by President Donald Trump, has withdrawn from it. Ever since the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in May 2018, Europe has been striving to devise an economic mechanism that will enable it to evade secondary American sanctions and continue, and even increase, the volume of its trade with Iran. Despite these prolonged and intensive efforts, the EU has been unable to create such a mechanism, due to the many difficulties involved.While the EU and Iran agree on the necessity for the nuclear deal, the EU opposes other aspects of Iranian activity that Khamenei has declared are red lines for Iran. The EU opposes the Iranian effort to upgrade the range and accuracy of its missiles, and calls for restrictions on Iran’s missile program. Britain recently formulated a program of sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program. Implementation of this package depends, however, on the EU’s consent, which appears unlikely at the present time.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019

By the time you read this, you will know whether Brexit has or has not happened. And if it has not—either through postponement or because Theresa May’s Brexit-in-Name-Only traps Britain under EU control indefinitely—then Brexit may never happen. It may seem odd to argue therefore that even so Brexit could be one of two events this spring—the other being EU elections in May—likely to accelerate Europe’s drift towards turmoil.

The reason is that frustrating Brexit would almost certainly stimulate more hostility and conflict than simply getting on with it. Contrary to what Remainers claim, there wasn’t much of either during the referendum campaign and the first year afterwards. The driving force of Euroscepticism was the feeling that though the EU’s supranational institutions may have suited continental Europe, they were too remote, bureaucratic and undemocratic to suit the Brits. Most Eurosceptics admired much of what the EU had achieved and liked changes such as the right to live throughout Europe.

That relaxed patriotism began to change to anger in response to the hostile remarks about Britain to which EU leaders gave vent in the last year. If the country is now kept inside EU structures against its democratic will, powerful anti-EU political sentiment will grow in British politics. It would be directed not only against the EU but also against those who have blocked or reversed Brexit. Brexit betrayed would dominate UK politics indefinitely.

Thus the Brexit paradox (one of many). Reversing Brexit was intended to restore stability, but in fact it would aggravate instability. Something similar can be foreseen for the European elections.

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/turkeys-voters-stun-erdogan-stoking-his-ire/90635/

Turkish voters punished their ruling party in municipal elections over the weekend. That could be a good omen for America — unless the strategically crucial country has already drifted too far from Washington.

For the first time in a quarter-century, parties opposing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan scored major victories in local elections. Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party, or AKP, lost eight major cities to secularist candidates. Especially stinging for the AKP were losses in the capital, ­Ankara, and in Istanbul, the country’s economic nerve center.

The Istanbul mayoralty was where Mr. Erdogan in 1994 launched his meteoric political career, one that has brought middle-class prosperity to millions of Turks — but at the price of the country’s democratic institutions and Western alliances.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-s-may-to-seek-talks-with-labour-further-brexit-extension-11554226292

LONDON—British Prime Minister Theresa May made an about-face in her Brexit strategy Tuesday by saying she would pursue a different deal with the opposition Labour Party, an approach that could keep the country more closely bound to the European Union than she previously envisioned.

Following a marathon seven-hour cabinet meeting, Mrs. May outlined plans to request a short extension of Brexit negotiations, ideally no longer than to May 22, to give the government time to hammer out an agreement with Labour and avoid leaving the bloc without a deal to smooth the U.K.’s exit.

“It requires national unity to deliver the national interest,” she said during a televised speech from inside her Downing Street residence.

The plan, which will likely lead to a softening of her Brexit deal, marks a last-hour roll of the dice for Mrs. May as she tries to find a path out of the Brexit logjam that has dominated her tenure.

After months of trying to appease euroskeptics in her Conservative Party, Mrs. May is now looking to lure opposition lawmakers instead. The Labour Party has pushed for the U.K. to remain in a customs union with the EU, a significantly different vision for Brexit than Mrs. May has espoused.