Looking beyond the headlines, Iran-related events at the United Nations illustrated the consistency of the positions held by its three key players.
President Trump, Secretary of State Pompeo, and National Security Advisor Bolton delivered a series of widely-covered speeches which served to underscore the administration’s commitment to its tough Iran policy and warned Iran’s commercial partners than even tougher sanctions are on the horizon. Some commentators continue to describe the U.S. as isolated on Iran, but this is not entirely correct. Israel and most regional Sunni states publicly and enthusiastically support the administration’s positions, the few regional outsiders (e.g., Iraq, Lebanon, and Qatar) generally being countries which either rely on Tehran’s economic support or endure political architectures dominated by well-armed Iranian proxies. Although a number of countries voiced their support for the Iran deal, no state argued that the U.S. concerns over Iran’s actions were invalid.
I must also note that the President actually thanked Iran– along with Russia, and Syria – in one of his speeches for abstaining from violence in the Idlib campaign. This may have been the only unexpected comment from the President on Iran.
What About Europe?
Perhaps the weakest performance on the Iran issue was Europe.
The European Union attempted to steal a march on the administration by announcing the creation of a new payments system which would allow European companies to deal with Iran outside of the U.S. financial network. Specifics and an implementation timetable were noticeably few. However, it remains difficult to imagine any significant commercial entity believing that dealing with Iran is worth the inevitable commercial, legal, and reputational risks that come with trading with one of Europe’s least important trading partners. As if to underscore the difficulties the EU has on this point, only hours before the new mechanism was announced, French state-owned bank Bpifrance abandoned its plan to set up a mechanism to aid French companies trading with Iran.
Norm Roule, Former National Intelligence Manager for Iran, ODNI
"The European Union continues to loudly maintain its support for the nuclear deal, but its Iran policy appears rudderless, perhaps in part, due to growing domestic political challenges facing the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After months of saying that Europe shares the administration’s concerns over Iran’s non-nuclear threats to international security and believes a long-term approach to Iran’s regional adventurism is overdue, Europe seems able to find few opportunities to publicly castigate Iran for these actions and devotes its rhetorical vigor to the need to sustain the nuclear deal and assuring Tehran that it would press for the economic benefits it won in the accord."
Europe’s silence over Iran’s well-documented expansionism, proliferation of missile technology, and involvement of terrorism remains troubling on a deeper level. Whatever one’s views on the Iran nuclear deal, post-1945 Europe has always (at least in theory) stood for stability and defense of small nations from the aggression of their larger neighbors. Federica Maria Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, may not be an influential decision maker, and although she claims to have held tough private conversations with Iran’s foreign minister on these topics, her silence is significant symbolically.
An exception to my comments may be regarding France, which has taken symbolic diplomatic steps to show its anger over Iran’s recent attempt to conduct a terrorist operation on its territory. In his United Nation’s address, President Emmanuel Macron stressed that “the ballistic assistance provided to Hezbollah and (Houthis) is a new and alarming development and has to stop before it further destabilizes a tense region. But one can’t help noting that he doesn’t actually mention Iran in this sentence. Further, those on the receiving end of the approximately 200 missiles which the Houthis have fired – with documented Iranian help – against Saudi cities might argue that the feared “destabilization” of the region has been underway for months.
Aside from capturing some headlines, Europe ends the week showing that it continues to lack the capacity to address either the issues which threaten regional states and compelled the Trump administration to withdraw from the deal, or to demonstrate that it has the economic strength to defy Washington.
What Did Iran Get Out of This?
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani will likely return home claiming to have achieved a propaganda victory: many traditional U.S. allies publicly supported the Iran nuclear deal, there were no European attacks on Iran for its involvement in terrorism or regional militias nor any reference to the large cache of nuclear weapons documentation seized by Israel earlier this year. Such a victory may suffice for Iran’s Supreme Leader, but its success rings hollow.
Norm Roule, Former National Intelligence Manager for Iran, ODNI
"Aside from the nuclear deal, Tehran’s diplomats continue to find little comfort at the United Nations. Videos of Rouhani’s speech showed a sea of empty chairs. Indeed, the only real sign of support may have been found in the combative speech by Bolivia, which noted the U.S. role in the 1953 coup which restored Iran’s shah to power."
The reaction within Iran to the United Nations session was not reassuring for Iran’s leadership. Probably in response to U.S. statements, the Iranian rial fell once more, reaching a new low of 170,000 to the dollar. At this point, the rial has lost about three-fourths of its value since the beginning of the year.
