Frida Ghitis
Relations between Iran and the European Union seemed to enjoy something of a honeymoon just after President Donald Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of the 2015 agreement limiting Tehran’s nuclear program. But it is becoming increasingly evident that any warm feelings engendered by a joint commitment to preserve the Iran deal and stand against Trump have cooled significantly. Europe and Iran are now growing farther apart amid accusations that the Islamic Republic is engaging in behavior that Europe cannot countenance. The nuclear deal itself could ultimately collapse in the acrimony.Last May, when Trump announced the U.S. was unilaterally withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA—the awkwardly named agreement that was the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy—Europe, along with Russia and China, vowed that they remained determined to prevent the deal from unraveling. A few months later, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, leaders gathered with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and issued a statement reaffirming their vow.
That meeting, as it turns out, was the high watermark of solidarity between Europe and Iran. Despite Europe’s wishes to strengthen ties with Tehran and deny a hostile Trump any source of satisfaction, Iran’s activities—including ballistic missile launches, assassinations on European soil, and military activities in Syria—have become impossible to ignore. For months, the enmity mostly kept bubbling under the surface, but now it has exploded into full view.
Earlier this month, the European Union formally imposed new sanctions on Iran, announcing small but symbolically important measures to freeze the assets of an Iranian intelligence unit and two of its members. More telling, however, were the public accusations launched against Tehran by European leaders, which marked a dramatic shift in past efforts to downplay any troubles.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok declared that the sanctions were meant to send a message to Iran that “this behavior is unacceptable and needs to stop immediately.” He had informed the Dutch parliament that investigators believe Tehran was responsible for two murders of exiled Iranians—both of them Dutch citizens—on Dutch soil in 2015 and 2017. This was not exactly news, but something had changed to make the Netherlands, and the EU, take such public action.
What was the tipping point? Europeans, it seems, are now convinced that Iranian agents have been engaged in a wave of assassination plots on European soil—not isolated incidents but part of a pattern. The killings in the Netherlands were perhaps the most dramatic, but the trail of plots is a long one.
Last October, France went public with accusations that Iran’s intelligence services were behind a scheme to bomb a meeting of Iranian opposition supporters in Paris a few months earlier. The alleged plot was foiled in a joint European operation. As French police conducted a number of arrests, Belgian police arrested two Iranian-born Belgian citizens; police said they found explosives and detonators in their possession. German police arrested an Iranian diplomat based in Austria, and Austrian authorities stripped him of his diplomatic status. Tehran denied any involvement.
The sense of joint purpose and even warmth visible between Iran and Europe just after Trump pulled out of the nuclear agreement is gone.
Denmark, which has taken a prominent position advocating for EU sanctions, has also accused Tehran of plotting to assassinate Iranian dissidents living in Denmark. Even Albania, a NATO member, expelled the Iranian ambassador to Tirana last month, along with another Iranian diplomat, accusing them of “violating their diplomatic status.” It gave no details, but Britain’s Independent reported that they had planned to attack Iranian exiles in Albania.
The EU was already troubled by continuing Iranian tests of medium-range ballistic missiles, which France, the U.K., the U.S. and others have described as “destabilizing and provocative” and a direct violation of United Nations resolutions. On top of that, the assassinations and alleged plots come at a time of growing tensions in the Middle East, as the U.S. is drawing down its presence in Syria.
Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of American forces has raised fears that Iran will establish a stronger presence in Syria. President Bashar al-Assad’s victory in Syria already guarantees a dominant political role for Tehran, Assad’s ally. But the new concerns center on Iran’s military footprint. Just this week, Germany banned Iran’s Mahan Air from the country, a decision it made in consultation with European and U.S. allies, claiming Mahan transports weapons and fighters to Syria.
Meanwhile, friction between Israel and Iran is only getting worse, with Israel accusing Iran this week of launching missilesfrom Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Tourists at a ski resort on Mount Hermon in the Golan watched and filmed as Israel’s missile defense system, known as Iron Dome, apparently struck an object in the sky on Sunday. In response, Israel hit a number of what it said were Iranian bases in Syria, including positions of the elite Quds Force.
A spokesman for the Israeli military told reporters that the missile launch was carried out by Iranian command, not Syrian or militia forces, and it came from near the Damascus airport, an area that Iran was supposed to have evacuated, casting doubt on arrangements brokered by Russia. It was, he said, the third time Iran has tried to attack Israel in the past year. The same day, the head of Iran’s air force, Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh, was quoted declaring that Tehran is “impatient to confront the Zionist regime and eliminate it from the Earth.”
The incendiary rhetoric, tit-for-tat strikes and diplomatic scuffles are all putting the Iran deal at risk. Late last year, Zarif warned Europe that Iran was losing patience with its efforts to find a way around Washington’s reimposed sanctions. The EU is hard at work developing what is known as a Special Purpose Vehicle that would allow European firms to circumvent American sanctions.
For now, it looks like ties between Europe and Iran are moving on two parallel tracks—on one, they are working together to save the Iran deal; on the other, they’re becoming increasingly bitter antagonists. The sense of joint purpose and even warmth visible just after Trump pulled out of the nuclear agreement is gone, even if preserving the JCPOA is still on the agenda. But the growing animosity risks derailing those efforts to save the deal.