The Daily Beast: How Iran Could Beat Trump at His Own Game

The United States is not a significant source of trade or investment for Iran. Being unable to sell or buy directly from the United States will not have a big impact on the Iranian economy. The problem for Iran is the so-called secondary sanctions—the inability of non-American companies to access the American market or use the U.S. banking system if they do business with Iran.

But, secondary sanctions are a game that two can play. The European Union collectively has an economy larger than that of the United States. China, also a party to the JCPOA, is the world’s second largest economy. If the United States can use secondary sanctions on European and Chinese businesses to promote its foreign policy objective of hurting Iran, the Europeans and Chinese can retaliate with secondary sanctions aimed at preserving the agreement.

Iran might reasonably work with Europe, China and Russia to foil U.S. secondary sanctions. Such arrangements might even enhance the economic value of the nuclear deal to Iran since many European companies were unwilling to invest in Iran under the JCPOA because of remaining (not nuclear related) U.S. sanctions. [...]

There was nothing that Macron wanted to accomplish more than to persuade Trump to stay in the Iran deal. He failed as he said for U.S. domestic reasons  (i.e. Trump’s obsession with humiliating his predecessor). Indeed, Macron has nothing to show for his cultivation of Trump—not on the environment, trade, or anything else.  Almost certainly, he will now try a different tack. With the United States itself isolated, the French president is the natural leader of Europe and the free world. And to accomplish Europe’s objectives, Macron will now likely chart an independent course. And, almost certainly part of that will be to find ways to keep Iran in the JCPOA.  

read the article

Deutsche Welle: With Emmanuel Macron, the EU still has a chance

When he says that the EU cannot afford to be weak given the challenges it faces on the domestic and foreign policy fronts, it is immediately obvious. The EU has to act in order to renew itself, and it has to act now. This is Macron's core theory. And the EU must not be afraid. In saying this, Macron was also directly appealing to those EU citizens who are wavering and losing heart. Solidarity among people within the bloc must be restored, he said, whether on economic issues or on migration. Nationalism must be warded off, and a multilateral world order must be established. Macron sees himself as the alternative to the president of the United States. He is the European anti-Donald Trump. [...]

Macron's proposals are concrete; Merkel's are still vague. She promised this would change at the EU summit to be held at the end of June. Germany and France also agree that the EU ought to play a greater foreign policy role — especially in the Middle East. The Iran deal must be upheld as best it can. Merkel repeated her statement that Europe could no longer rely on the US as a guarantor for defense and security.

In his speech, Macron the European once again made it crystal clear that there will be a price to pay for the continuing development of the EU. Germany must relinquish its opposition to a transfer union. France must give up its resistance and be prepared to accept EU treaty changes, i.e. be prepared to take a democratic risk.

read the article

Bloomberg: Theresa the Delayer: May's Secret to Surviving in Brexit Britain

The minister’s colleague was more sanguine. May has survived so long by avoiding confrontation and would continue by finding a compromise that enables both sides to declare victory.

At least part of May’s strategy appears to be more procrastination: An inner cabinet meeting was canceled Thursday, and another scheduled on Tuesday is now uncertain. Meanwhile, lawmakers wonder when they’ll get the chance to vote on key pieces of Brexit legislation. Two have been on pause since February, and May has now put her flagship EU withdrawal bill on ice. [...]

Debates in the House of Commons on May’s Brexit laws, when they come, are likely to expose her predicament even further -- she’s stuck between a likely majority for a customs union, and the more than 60 lawmakers in her Conservative Party threatening to derail her government if she goes for one. [...]

Delaying to apply pressure would anger her lawmakers, but this is where May’s capacity for long-suffering helps. With the Conservatives divided on Brexit, neither wing of the party is keen to remove her in case they like her replacement even less. Surrounded by critics and undermined by her Cabinet, May stays for as long as she can stand it.

read the article

Aeon: These should be the end times for American patriotism

One of the conceits of American patriotism – that it is a salubrious version of the pernicious nationalism that other countries have – has helped to protect it from critical questioning of almost any type. The kinds of 20th-century Leftist political movements that in principle opposed nationalism fared poorly in the US, and this might be why popular justifications for the country’s patriotism tend to be shallow. They are often based on appeals to treasured details of family or community life: patriotism is Little League baseball on a warm summer day, the courtesy of the small-town merchant, a neighbourhood rebuilding together after a destructive storm. All nationalisms make sentimental appeal to intimate but generic experience, and the effects can help to raise armies and start wars. They carry, in other words, formidable political force. But they are not any kind of serious moral or intellectual case for patriotism.  [...]

American patriotism has always depended on conjuring alleged conspiracies from migrants or outsiders bearing existential threats: foreign devils all. Throughout the 19th and into the 20th century, it was Catholicism. The Anglo establishment held Catholics to be unreasoning and beholden to priestly power, unfit for the obligations of citizenship. That’s why people who take the oath to become citizens must renounce allegiance to any foreign ‘potentate’, that is, the Pope. Then the Cold War made it communism: like Catholicism, a nebulous and formidable global power, yet also moving invisibly in the hearts and minds of immigrants, to undermine the country from within. Now rival camps differ as to whether the existential threat is sharia or Russia. [...]

This core component of American patriotism – the popular conviction in a world-historical role for the US – is unlikely to continue. First, it is increasingly difficult not to notice that in many basic matters of government and society, including healthcare, public education, gender equity, social mobility and prosperity, economic fairness, childcare, environment and more, the US has fallen behind most of the developed world. The US’s world-historical ambitions have simply not kept pace with world history. Secondly, the wars. Wars are nation-making events, but they can also be unmaking ones. If your patriotism is linked to pretensions of a world-historical role, what do you do when the world chooses not to emulate you, or when it (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) doesn’t want your Americanisation project? Mere military supremacy, especially when it proves ineffective at achieving its goals, is unlikely to be enough to sustain the exceptionalist heart of American patriotism.

read the article

The New York Times: Trump Bets Sanctions Will Force Iran to Bargain. There’s No Plan B.

Beyond betting that Iran’s leaders will return to the negotiating table, and seek a better deal, once they feel the sanctions’ bite, the president appeared to acknowledge that he has no Plan B for dealing with Tehran. [...]

On Wednesday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ultimately approved the terms of the 2015 deal, declared that his country will need 20,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity for its power grid. He did not explicitly suggest resuming uranium enrichment, but for years Iran insisted that its nuclear program was for civilian use — even though it was already buying fuel from Russia to power its one major reactor.

After Mr. Trump announced his decision, the leaders of Britain, France and Germany on Tuesday reaffirmed their support for a United Nations Security Council resolution that formally endorsed the accord. The European leaders asserted that the resolution was the applicable international law governing the Iranian nuclear problem — a way of suggesting that the United States is the first country to violate the accord.

They also noted that Mr. Trump’s own intelligence officials — including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when he was serving as C.I.A. director — have said he saw no evidence that Iran had violated the deal.

read the article