On January 12, President Trump set a deadline for Congress — and the five nations that joined President Obama in signing his nuclear weapons deal with Iran — to make major changes to the deal. He said it was the last chance to either fix the deal’s disastrous flaws, or the United States would withdraw from it.
Nine days later Iran’s foreign minister Mohammed Zarif, in an op-ed in the Financial Times, one of Europe’s most highly-regarded newspapers, presented his European counterparts with arguments for “security cooperation” in a new “post-Western global order” artfully stated in the terms of the European leaders’ most fervently-held globalist beliefs.
It was an elegant attempt at diplomatic seduction, aiming to increase European — and Iranian — strong opposition to any changes in the agreement. Mr. Zarif appealed to Germany, France and Britain for their appeasement of Iran stated in the diplomatic terms those nations’ leaders use most often.
Mr. Zarif posed what he called an opportunity for nations to cooperate in a post-ISIS world in pursuit of regional strength in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. He argued that the historical modes of forming alliances have become obsolete because they assume a commonality of interests.
Instead, he proposes “security networking” that is ” Iran’s innovation to address issues that range from divergence of interests to power and size disparities.”