Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has vowed “that Iran will continue violating the nuclear deal until European powers meet Tehran’s demands.”
Khamenei directed his rage toward the UK for “seizing an oil tanker that was violating European sanctions against shipping oil to Syria,” and threatened retaliation.
The EU responded to Iran with more appeasement, as it “scrambled to portray Iran’s violations to date as insignificant and easily reversed, sending a message that Iran had not crossed any red lines yet” — referring to breaches of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Trump who has not appeased Iran, but pulled out of the JCPOA and levied sanctions against the regime. Yet he has indicated that Iranian leaders expressed interest in negotiating with the U.S. According to the New York Times:
President Trump told reporters……that Iranian leaders had communicated a desire for negotiations with the United States despite their hostile remarks in public.
“They’d like to talk, and we’ll see what happens,” Mr. Trump said. Mike Pompeo, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, asserted that Iran was willing to negotiate over its missile program, an area of Western concern that was not covered in the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Jihadists typically respond to appeasement with further aggression, as seen in Khamenei’s statement that Iran “will ‘certainly continue’ to violate nuclear commitments.”
Netanyahu has “joined the Trump administration to pressure Europe into recognizing Iran as a major security threat.” The EU will likely not be unified in following such a course of action, given its dim record of appeasement and dhimmitude in dealing with jihadists.
“Ayatollah Khamenei: Iran Will Continue Violating Nuclear Deal,” by John Hayward, Breitbart, July 16, 2019:
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei vowed on Tuesday that Iran will continue violating the nuclear deal until European powers meet Tehran’s demands.
The European Union scrambled to portray Iran’s violations to date as insignificant and easily reversed, sending a message that Iran had not crossed any red lines yet.“According to our foreign minister, Europe made 11 commitments, none of which they abided by. We abided by our commitments and even beyond them. Now that we’ve begun to reduce our commitments, they oppose it. How insolent! You didn’t abide by your commitments!” Khamenei thundered at the Europeans on Tuesday.
The Iranian leader added a specific threat to the United Kingdom, which enraged Iran by seizing an oil tanker that was violating European sanctions against shipping oil to Syria.
“Evil Britain commits piracy and steals our ship … and gives it a legal appearance. Iran and those who believe in our system will not leave such evil deeds unanswered,” Khamenei promised.
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini responded to Iran’s increasingly belligerent rhetoric, and growing stockpile of uranium, by insisting none of its breaches of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) constitute “significant noncompliance” and all of them can be easily undone.
“The deal is not in good health, but it’s still alive. We invite Iran to reverse the steps and go back to full compliance,” Mogherini said on Monday.
“Technically all the steps that have been taken, and that we regret have been taken, are reversible,” she said, indicating that none of the European powers have yet seen a reason to trigger the dispute resolution mechanisms in the JCPOA or impose sanctions on Iran.
The New York Times interpreted these comments as Mogherini and other EU ministers “scrambling to save the nuclear agreement with Iran” by giving it more room to misbehave and signaling to the United States that they will not abandon their support for the JCPOA, which they still regard as the only effective means of slowing Iran’s march to nuclear weapons….