Secretary of State Rex Tillerson predicted Friday that European allies would be “very supportive” of President Trump’s new Iran strategy, despite their preference for the previous policy.
“I fully expect that our allies and friends in Europe and in the region are going to be very supportive in efforts undertaken to deal with Iran’s threats,” Tillerson said Friday at the State Department.
Trump’s Iran strategy depends, at least in the short-term, on European cooperation. He refused to affirm that the nuclear deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama’s team is in the national security interests of the United States. But he declined to impose sanctions on Iran which would shred the pact; instead, Trump and his congressional allies hope to pressure Iran and European leaders to negotiate new restrictions on the regime’s aggression.
“We’ll see what happens over the next short period of time,” Trump said Friday. “I like a two-step process much better.”
European leaders gave a tepid response to the announcement, in which Trump had rejected their belief that the deal has “neutralized” Iran’s nuclear threat as long as all sides comply. But they also signaled an interest in negotiations, if that can deter Trump from imposing the sanctions once again.
“We stand ready to take further appropriate measures to address these issues in close cooperation with the U.S. and all relevant partners,” said British Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We look to Iran to engage in constructive dialogue to stop de-stabilizing actions and work towards negotiated solutions.”
A former Obama administration official allowed that there is some potential for the deal to be improved over the long-term. “The agreement can be expanded and thankfully, because the deal has these long-term constraints, we have years to engage in steady, patient diplomacy to either patch up elements of the deal or supplement it,” Colin Kahl, who advised Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, said at the Wilson Center on Friday.
But he countered that Trump has taken an unnecessary and counterproductive risk. “This entire gamble actually focuses on the part of the problem that at least for the next 10 or 15 years is tapped, and that is the nuclear file,” he said. “And it probably threatens the very consensus that the administration wants to create around Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region. By creating the perception that we’re implementing the deal in bad faith, it’s hard to see how we are going to be taken sufficiently seriously to try to patch up or expand the deal.”
Under the best circumstances, Trump’s strategy will require “artful diplomacy” to mobilize the whole of the U.S. government and European allies to pressure a regime likely to find support from Russia and China. That recognition led some experts to doubt whether the Trump team could execute the plan effectively.
“We’ll have leverage to do stuff, but it requires a lot of artful diplomacy, as well as effective economic and military hard-power coercion,” a Middle East expert who has advised the Trump administration told the Washington Examiner on condition of anonymity.
Part of that doubt arose from the knowledge that Tillerson and other members of Trump’s national security team opposed the strategy during internal debates. “I think that because the principals, in general, don’t want to go down this path, they’re not in the mindset to come up with everything, to be frank,” the source added.
Tillerson touted the new plan on Friday, though. “To our friends and allies in Europe, I think we have a real opportunity to address all the threats that are posed by Iran,” he said. “I think the plan the President’s laid out has been quite clear in terms of articulating those threats; that really, it’s in all of our interests to work together.”
