When President Donald Trump announced on 8th May that the United States would not be a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran deal, anymore, it was easily predictable that new tensions between Tehran and Washington will emerge soon. It didn’t take long for the European Union to voice its regret over President Trump’s decision and say in an unequivocal manner that Trump’s unilateralism won’t mark the premature death of the Iran deal, signed and sealed only three years ago.
Britain, France and Germany issued a statement in which they reiterated their continued commitment to the JCPOA as long as Iran abides by its nuclear commitments. They said Europe will honor the terms of the Iran deal and encourages trade and business with Iran. It was then when the advent of a gap in the US-EU relations was noticeable.
In phone conversations with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the leaders of the three countries gave assurances that Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal would not be translated into the demise of the agreement, secured in July 2015.
However, it isn’t difficult to conclude that the fulfillment of one of President Trump’s main campaign promises is a lethal blow to the foundation of a deal, which according to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, was so meticulously negotiated that there were lengthy discussions and debates between the interlocutors over each of its words. The document runs to 109 pages, including five annexes and is an intricate and detailed roadmap for collaboration between Iran, the United States, the European Union, China, Russia and finally the United Nations Security Council on the prospects of Iran’s nuclear program. The Iran nuclear deal is endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, specifying the restrictions Iran voluntarily imposes on its nuclear program in return for the removal of all nuclear-related sanctions it was subjected to by the six countries involved in the negotiations and the Security Council itself.
The departure of one of the main signatories of the agreement, followed by the enforcement of new sanctions against Iran, however, means a lot of things, including disappointment for those who believed Barack Obama’s commitment to diplomacy and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s overpowering of hardliners at home, translated into the signing of the nuclear deal, were the first steps in a long walk to a lasting Iran-US reconciliation which even Donald Trump couldn’t thwart.
Even if the European countries, China, Russia and the traditional clients of Iran’s oil in Asia such as India, Japan and South Korea continue doing business with Iran under the shadow of harrowing US sanctions and even if the nuclear deal is salvaged through day and night efforts and diplomacy by the remaining parties, it’s undeniable that the psychological effect of the new sanctions imposed 6th August cannot and will not be alleviated and the international community’s relations with Iran will always be marred with fear of US penalties over business with a country which the Trump administration is apparently fully committed to bring to its knees. Unless anything changes in the White House or unless Iran is back to talks with the United States, Iranians shouldn’t await any good news as their country becomes a pariah state shunned by partners and rivals and isolated on the international scene.
For a number of reasons, Trump’s decision in pulling out from the nuclear deal with Iran and imposing new sanctions will lead to serious complexities in the future of Iran-US relations and make any rapprochement and reconciliation implausible or at least hard to achieve. Iran has said no to new negotiations with the United States even as its economy is collapsing with the first bites of the sanctions.
The demands put forward to Iran by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the US government’s preconditions for the improvement of relations with Iran, sound impossible to be granted by the standards of the Iranian government. The granting of these requests mean forgoing the quintessential and prototypical footing of the 1979 revolution: exporting the revolution. Maybe, situation in the future will be such that Iran forgets about its ideological ambition of exporting its revolution in the Middle East and to its neighbors, but for the moment, Trump’s antagonistic attitude hasn’t convinced the authorities in Tehran to come back to the negotiation table and it goes without saying that the geopolitical dynamics of the Iranian society are fundamentally different from North Korea, so it’s not possible to expect Iran to give in to pressure easily even when it’s conspicuously suffering.
The new round of US sanctions which target the Iranian people and statesmen alike will be complemented by additional measures shortly when the second phase of sanctions will be triggered on November 5. The first round of sanctions renders three major contracts between Iran and aircraft manufacturers Airbus, Boeing and ATR for the delivery of 230 commercial airplanes to Iran null and void and even cancels deals for $852 million worth of pistachio export and $424 million in carpets export.
Even if the sanctions imposed by President Trump, who warned the world countries boldly to stop doing business with Iran or they will have their US trade ties compromised, aren’t examples of human rights violation – they directly affect the livelihoods of millions of Iranians including patients in need of imported medicine, they have a clear message. The message imparted by the new US sanctions is that forty years after the Iranian revolution and the cutting off of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States, the two countries aren’t on a promising path to rapprochement and détente. They continue making the proponents of diplomacy and peace even more disappointed, rendering the mending of their flawed relations more difficult for the future Iranian and American administrations.
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Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2018). Michel Drain propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Christian Deubner, Security and Defense Cooperation in the EU: A Matter of Utility and Choice (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2018, 272 pages).
Christian Deubner, membre d’un groupe de réflexion commun au Comité d’études des relations franco-allemandes (Cerfa) de l’Ifri et à la Fondation Genshagen, publie un bilan critique des politiques de sécurité et de défense de l’Union européenne (UE) jusqu’en 2017.
Il s’en tient aux orientations fixées en décembre 2016 par l’UE pour mettre en œuvre la « stratégie globale » de juin 2016, sans examiner les mesures adoptées depuis lors. Il parvient néanmoins à définir certains des obstacles fondamentaux qui ont, jusqu’à présent, empêché l’émergence d’une Europe plus autonome dans la gestion de sa propre sécurité.
Christian Deubner considère que les pays de l’UE bâtissent leurs politiques de sécurité extérieure sur la base de quatre options institutionnelles : l’Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique nord (OTAN), l’Organisation des Nations unies (ONU), les coalitions d’États volontaires et l’UE, chacune de ces options étant retenue en fonction de la perception nationale des avantages offerts dans chaque cas. Face à la réaffirmation de la puissance russe, les pays de l’UE auraient ainsi tendance à s’adresser à l’OTAN. S’agissant des menaces émanant du sud et sud-est de l’Europe (terrorisme, mouvements migratoires illégaux), les pays les plus interventionnistes, et tout particulièrement la France, préféreraient l’action nationale, si nécessaire en coalition, notamment avec les États-Unis et le Royaume-Uni. Pour les défis de sécurité du Sud, c’est le cadre de l’ONU, en liaison avec l’Union africaine ou les organisations sous-régionales, qui serait généralement privilégié.
La Politique de sécurité et de défense commune (PSDC) de l’UE ne serait retenue que pour les missions les moins dangereuses, de plus en plus à caractère civil. Même en dehors d’Europe, l’OTAN paraîtrait plus adaptée en cas d’emploi significatif de la force, en raison de la robustesse de ses structures de commandement, qui bénéficient de l’affectation prévisionnelle de la majeure partie des forces nationales.
Ces préférences, variables selon les pays, découleraient également des cultures stratégiques nationales. L’Allemagne trouve dans l’OTAN un cadre de coopération multilatéral éprouvé, et la France considère souvent qu’elle peut agir plus efficacement seule ou au sein de coalitions ad hoc.
Christian Deubner relève cependant que les défis du terrorisme et des migrations de masse introduisent un élément nouveau. Si le rôle de l’UE devenait plus actif dans ces deux domaines, l’opinion publique, dont c’est une des attentes, le soutiendrait probablement. Mais il faudrait pour cela mieux articuler les politiques de sécurité extérieure et intérieure de l’UE, en dépit de leurs profondes différences de nature et de moyens.
Au total, Christian Deubner n’envisage pour la PSDC que des perspectives de développement réduites dans l’état actuel des risques et menaces, ce qui le conduit peut-être à sous-estimer la portée d’une innovation comme l’intervention de la Commission européenne dans le domaine de la défense, et plus particulièrement de l’armement. Il demeure également sceptique quant à la capacité de la France et de l’Allemagne à s’entendre pour développer l’autonomie stratégique de l’UE. Sa recherche n’en constitue pas moins un utile cadre de référence pour l’évaluation des évolutions à venir des politiques européennes de sécurité.
Michel Drain
In October, the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan will turn 17. The human and material costs of what has become the United States’ longest-ever war are colossal. More than 2,000 U.S. military personnel have been killed and over 20,000 have been injured. The UN estimates that nearly 20,000 Afghan civilians have been killed and another 50,000 injured since 2009 alone. The United States has spent some $877 billion on the war. The Trump administration’s recent initiative to seek direct peace talks with the Taliban—a first since the start of the war in 2001—highlights that Washington is actively looking for new ways to wind down its involvement in the conflict. But why has the U.S.