THE EUROPEAN UNION’s APPEASEMENT OF IRAN Endless concessions didn’t stop Hitler, nor will they stop the Mullahs. Joseph Puder
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274365/european-unions-appeasement-iran-joseph-puder
The European Union (EU) leaders are anxious to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran at all costs, and they are willing to ignore Iran’s breaking the deal by enriching its uranium stockpile to 4.5%. An act that is a clear violation of the nuclear agreement, formally titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed by Iran, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the U.S. (the U.S. withdrew from the deal last year). The EU efforts are reminiscent of the way Neville Chamberlain, the former British Prime Minister, believed that he could preserve the peace in Europe by having a deal with Hitler. Hitler however, never meant to adhere to the (Munich) agreement and end his aggression, and neither does Iran. The EU’s endemic predisposition toward appeasement would inevitably lead to a catastrophe. Iran would produce a nuclear bomb long before the EU agreed to take military action against the terror sponsoring, and doomsday seeking Ayatollahs.
Iran’s tactics of intimidation and provocations supplemented with violent acts by its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) or its proxies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, resemble Hitler’s tactics in Nazi Germany’s late 1930’s. Iran’s protégé, the Hezbollah terror organization, serves as its Nazi-like SS enforcer in Lebanon, and increasingly elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond. Earlier this month the IRGC attempted to capture a British tanker in the Persian Gulf. Prior to that it had downed a U.S. drone, as well as being implicated in the damaging of oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
The European democracies are once again blind to the reality they face. Hitler, in his 1925 book, Mein Kampf, made his genocidal intention regarding Jews quite clear, as well as his plan of subjugating the “East” (the Slavic lands, including the Soviet Union) for “lebensraum” (German for living space). The Iranian regime has likewise made its intentions clear about “wiping Israel off the map,” building long-range ballistic missiles to reach Europe and America and expanding the “Shiite Crescent” across the Middle East. It is also apparent that the regime would eventually enrich uranium to a level that would enable it to produce nuclear weapons. The JCPOA agreement is meaningless to the Iranian chess-masters, who are avid practitioners of Taqiyya (deceiving non-believers). Clearly, the Ayatollahs and the IRGC resolved not to be caught without a nuclear deterrent as Saddam Hussein was in 2003.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to a statement by Federica Mogherini, the European Unions’[j1] foreign policy chief, that none of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran saw the increased uranium enrichment as a “significant non-compliance.” Netanyahu compared the current EU handling of the situation with Iran to the European democracies failed diplomacy with Nazi Germany in the months preceding WWII. He stated, “It reminds me of the European appeasement of the 1930’s.” He added, “Then too, there were those who stuck their heads in the sand and did not see the approaching danger. It seems there are those in Europe who will not wake up until Iranian nuclear missiles land on European soil. But then, it will be too late, of course.” Netanyahu concluded, “In any event, we will continue to do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weaponry.”
Mogherini made it clear that the European signatories to the nuclear deal with Iran do not intend to invoke the special clauses in the 2015 nuclear agreement that provided for the renewal of international sanctions against the Tehran regime. The EU foreign policy chief pointed out that she believes that it is still possible to save the nuclear agreement. She appealed to the Iranian regime to take back the steps the Iranian regime had taken, namely keeping a larger than allowed stockpile of uranium, and increasing the uranium enrichment to a 4.5% level. Mogherini excused the Iranian defiance by arguing that according to the data provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran’s action of breaking the uranium enrichment level limits, does not, in essence, stand for breaking the agreement. Frankly, that was a rather evasive way to do nothing but ignore Iran’s gross violation of the agreement.
According to the European Sanctions website (June 18, 2019) “Iran may start the process of enriching uranium up to 5% to meet the needs of the Bushehr power plant, and up to 20% (military grade) for a research reactor. At present, Iran is limited to enriching uranium to 3.67%.” At the same time, Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency spokesperson announced that if the European states will not find a way to shield Iran from its international isolation caused by U.S. sanctions, Iran will continue to break more and more parts of the nuclear agreement.
To many among European elites, the Trump Administration, not the Iranians, is the aggressor and they view Iran’s theocratic regime as the victim. They express moreover, empathy for Iran’s recent belligerent moves. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (June 30, 2019) reported that Nathalie Tucci, a special advisor to the EU Foreign Policy (outgoing) Chief, Frederica Mogherini, told the BBC that America was to blame for the tension in the Gulf because it pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. She said that if there is an escalation on one side, then there is going to be retaliation on the other. Apparently, Iran’s aggression and ethnic cleansing is not on the radar screens of the European elites. The Europeans fail to grasp the fact that Iran’s aggression, terror, and its ostensible mission to control the Middle East (preceding the Trump administration), has little to do with American actions and everything to do with fundamentalist worldview of the Iranian Ayatollahs.
European diplomats are urging the Trump administration to drop its policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran and adopt one of “maximum restraint.” The Europeans however, are more than willing to overlook the fact Iran has been waging war against the U.S. and its allies for decades. It has provided roadside bombs to Iraqi and Afghan insurgents that killed and maimed American servicemen. Similarly, the Iranian regime has been attacking western shipping in the Persian Gulf since the mid-1980’s, long before the nuclear deal with Iran was even a thought. Iran placed mines in the Persian Gulf in violation of international law. In 1988, one such mine struck the U.S. Navy guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, injuring 10 U.S. sailors, and blowing a 15-foot wide hole in the vessel’s hull.
The Europeans and the EU in particular are willing to ignore the recent Iranian terror operations on European soil (albeit foiled, thanks to Israeli intelligence) for the sake of preserving the nuclear deal. Iran, on its part, continues to dictate its terms to the appeasing Europeans. In the end, appeasement did not stop Hitler’s Germany from waging total war, nor will it stop Iran from pursuing its fundamentalist ideology buttressed by terror, and ultimately by a nuclear bomb. Iran will only be deterred by a show of force. To avoid a future catastrophic war, preventive action against Iran must be considered now.
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