America's Sometime European Allies

For the leftist media and the leftist intelligentsia it’s all Trump’s fault. No matter what happens, it’s Trump’s fault. Good, bad or indifferent, it’s all Trump’s fault.

Relations with our so-called European allies are fraying. It’s Trump’s fault. Angela Merkel approves a gas deal that will fund Putin’s Russia. It’s Trump’s fault… for colluding with Russia. Theresa May cannot produce a Brexit deal. It’s all Trump’s fault. Western Europe is being overrun by Muslim migrants. It’s all Trump’s fault.

It seems like a good time to take a step back, to take a deep breath and to examine the policies that our Western European allies are pursuing. We know that they are hot to trot to make deals with Iran. 

And yet, in the rest of the world, a new alliance of Middle Eastern nations, from Saudi Arabia to the Emirates to Israel, is joining with America to fight Iran-backed terrorism. And we know that Eastern European nations have moved closer to the American alliance.

As for Western Europe, its leaders recently held a meeting in Vienna with top Iranian officials. The purpose: to save the Obama Iran nuclear deal. Also in attendance, Russian and Chinese officials. 

Western Europe is in denial. In severe denial. It believes that Barack Obama is still president. After all, he kowtowed to them. Trump does not. It's all Trump's fault.

The Vienna meeting was convened by EU foreign policy chief, Fernanda Mogherini. Its purpose was simple: to figure out how to circumvent American sanctions against Iran and to keep doing business with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Caroline Glick calls it appeasement. Surely, she is correct.

Glick has the story:

Last Friday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini presided over a curious summit in Vienna. In the same hall where she and her colleagues concluded the nuclear deal with Iran three years ago, Mogherini and her comrades tried to concoct ways to save the deal by undermining American power and defying its decision to abandon the deal.

Mogherini was joined in her efforts by the German, French and British foreign ministers. Sitting opposite them were Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, and the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers. Together they brainstormed ways to undermine the economic sanctions the US will begin implementing next month against Iran and anyone from anywhere that trades with Iran.

Who is leading the charge to keep funding the Iranian regime? You guessed it, Angela Merkel’ Germany. You might have imagined that the oh-so-empathetic Germans, who once led the world in anti-Semitism, would be slightly wary about funding a regime that wants to kill Jews. You would be wrong. The self-appointed leader of the liberal world order, Barack Obama’s European mini-me has no compunctions at all. 

BTW, did you notice at the NATO summit how dumpy Merkel looked. She did not look like she was even in charge of her own wardrobe. Pathetic....

Glick explains:

The Germans apparently are the keenest to continue the money flow to Tehran. Bild, a Berlin-based tabloid, reported on Tuesday that Iran has asked the European-Iranian Trade Bank, which is majority owned by Iranian state-owned banks but registered in Hamburg with the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, to permit it to withdraw €350 million in cash. The Iranians intend to fly the cash to Tehran to avoid the prospect of the accounts being frozen once US sanctions are reimposed. According to the Bild report, the German government supports the cash transfer. The Merkel government believes the Iranian claim that the money will be distributed to Iranian businessmen who will be barred from using credit cards in international commerce due to the US sanctions.

The Germans apparently are happy to ignore the fact that Iran routinely uses cash to pay for its wars in Syria and Yemen. Iran regularly transfers millions of dollars in cash to Hamas in Gaza. Cash is its routine method of financing Hezbollah and its terror empire in Lebanon and throughout the world – including in Germany.

The Germans don’t care about that. Their goal is not to prevent terror. Their goal is to flood Iran with money.

Of course, Glick continues, the Mogherini summit was convened just before President Trump arrived in Brussels. Thus, it expressed contempt for America.

Mogherini’s summit in Vienna was a statement of deep contempt for the US. Days before US President Donald Trump was scheduled to arrive on the continent, the leaders of Europe publicly colluded with Iran, China and Russia to undermine and weaken America. While shocking in and of itself, Europe’s behavior didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

Mogherini has been publicly attacking the US for walking away from the nuclear deal and declaring her allegiance to the pact three times a day, every day since May 8 when Trump announced he was pulling the US out of it and reimposing sanctions on Iran.

What we didn’t know until recently is why Mogherini and her colleagues have chosen to stand with Iran against America. 

Of course, the weak-kneed Western Europeans ignored the fact that Iran has been setting up terrorist networks in their cities. Just before the meeting, Iranian terrorists planned to bomb a rally in Paris:

So in under a week, an Iranian terror cell tried to blow up a rally in Paris and Europe’s leaders reacted by hosting their bosses in a fancy hall and promising them billions of dollars and a nuclear arsenal within a decade in defiance of the US. 

The Western European policy is raw appeasement. They believe that their cowardice will ensure that Iran does not attack them. If Iran attacks someone else, they do not care:

As to the policy itself, Europe’s Iran policy is a policy of pure appeasement, based on profound weakness. Mogherini and her comrades are fully aware that Iran can cause them harm and intends to cause them harm. Through payoffs and betrayal of the US they hope to convince the Iranians to attack someone else instead of them. They don’t care if it’s Israel or Saudi Arabia or America. As far as the Europeans are concerned, Iran can kill whoever it wants, so long as it doesn’t attack Europe. 

This is Europe’s Iran policy. It has no other policy.

We note that the leaders of Western Europe are mostly women—Emmanuel Macron excepted. Of course, Macron married his mother, which does not put him the running to be alpha male. Thus, in response to Donald Trump’s machismo, Europe’s women have fashioned a policy that is all about appeasement and weakness. It’s girl power. Just don't say that they aren't strong and empowered.

Western Europe hates Trump, Glick continues, because he exposes their weakness:

Trump scares the Europeans. He doesn’t scare them because he expects them to pay for their own defense. All of his predecessors had the same expectation. He frightens the Europeans because he ignores their rhetoric while mercilessly exposing their true policy and refuses to accept it. They are scared that Trump intends to exact a price from them for their weak-kneed treachery.

As for the Vienna summit, it turned out to be a colossal failure. European businesses know who has the power and they know that it is not in the hands of the EU:

The summit in Vienna was a dud. Like Trump, the Iranians understand that European rhetoric gets them nowhere. European banks aren’t willing to lose the American market for Iran. Likewise, European conglomerates are pulling out of deals with Iran one after another to avoid US sanctions.

So, it was all posturing and show. It was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Europe’s attempts to fashion its own foreign policy exposed its fundamental weakness. As the old saying goes: all hat, and no cattle.