Europe's Last-Ditch Effort to Save the Iran Deal
It’s not easy seeking to mollify President Trump, and seldom satisfying. Just ask French President Emmanuel Macron, who is visiting Washington and who has been more successful dealing with Trump than many of his foreign counterparts. He has forged a good personal rapport with the U.S. president—to the point of being granted this White House’s first state visit—and he enjoys more influence over the mercurial commander-in-chief than other European leaders. Yet even Macron couldn’t keep Trump in the Paris climate accord, didn’t stop the United States from initiating a tariff war, and couldn’t convince Trump not to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. There is every reason to fear that Macron won’t prevail on the next important item on the agenda: persuading the president to remain in the Iran nuclear deal.
It’s hardly for lack of trying. For months now, France, along with Germany and the United Kingdom (the other European signatories of the accord), has been trying to keep America in the deal. That seemed a herculean task before the latest makeover in the president’s foreign policy team. With the ascendance of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, it might well have become an impossible one. The odds of Trump exiting the Iran deal, more formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have gotten higher—and it’s hard to see how this ends well for the security of the United States, the Middle East, or the world.
At the outset, it is worth making
