The Briefing Room

General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: 240B on May 13, 2018, 02:00:15 pm

Title: Former Obama Officials Suggest European Allies Expel American Diplomats
Post by: 240B on May 13, 2018, 02:00:15 pm

The Daily Caller
PETER HASSON
7:04 PM 05/12/2018

Two former Obama administration officials suggested that America’s European allies should punish President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the Iran deal and levying additional sanctions on the Islamic republic.

The European Union and individual European countries are obligated to take aggressive steps to preserve the Iran deal, in order to avoid becoming Trump’s “doormat,” Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson argued in an op-ed that ran in The New York Times Thursday. Both Simon and Stevenson were directors on former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council (NSC).

“The European Union could, for instance, announce the withdrawal of member-states’ ambassadors from the United States. Isn’t this what states do when diplomatic partners breach solemn agreements, expose them to security risks and threaten to wreak havoc on their economies? That is, after all, what the administration is threatening to do by courting the risk of a Middle Eastern war and applying secondary sanctions to European companies,” they argued. “Depending on the American response, European capitals might even follow up with expulsion of American ambassadors.”

(more)
http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/12/obama-officials-european-allies-iran-deal/