Yesterday John Bolton doubled down on Donald Trump’s promise to fully reinstate sanctions against Iran.
Previously, Trump had said he was open to the idea of sanctioning European countries which continue their involvement with Iran after the US pulls out of the Iran Deal.
In other words, Trump said that if our allies don’t back us up on the Iran situation, we may end up slapping them with sanctions too. That’s just the kind of tough negotiation Trump promised on the campaign trail, and it’s uniquely refreshing to hear him giving those socialist European nutbags a warning not to mess with the US.
Hell, we’ve been subsidizing these countries for years, paying out of our own pocket to cover the costs of their national defense. And it’s about damn time the bill came due.
If the mealy-mouthed wretches that run the governments of Europe won’t co-operate with us on our defense priorities, why should we foot the bill for their protection?
When asked yesterday whether the “cooperate or suffer” sanctions were still on the table, John Bolton gave a careful confirmation. “It’s possible,” said ol’ Boots-On-The-Ground Bolton. And with just a twitch of his majestic mustache, all the trembling heads of government in Europe surely felt a chill run down their spines.
Because after Trump announced we were done, as a nation, with the bullcrap Iran Deal that Obummer and John Kerry saddled us with, the Europeans were quick to display their fickleness.
The leaders of France, Germany, and the UK all issued a joint statement, indicating their continued commitment to the Iran Deal.
Our supposed “allies” also urged America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, to “ensure that the structures of the deal can remain intact, and to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by all other parties to the deal.”
In other words, they were begging Trump not to torpedo the deal that lowered gas prices for their citizens at the expense of our global security. Last year the French closed on a deal to sell $18 billion worth of Airbus planes to Iran. And the Germans made $3.5 billion off of Iranian trade in 2017. No doubt the governments of Europe have loved the boost in revenue that came from the softball deal Obama offered the Iranians.
But their citizens would probably also love not to be nuked by an Iranian bomb.
The two Red Empires, China and Russia, also stated their ongoing support for the deal. So it looks like the US government now stands alone against the Persian menace.
Only Trump has the backbone to tell the Ayatollah where to stick his piss-poor deal. Maybe everybody else involved is still hoping Obama can make a return to power somehow; wouldn’t they all just love that.
But it’s Trump’s America now, and he’s calling the shots. And just as Jon Bolton said, the US must be fully committed to its new course of action. If our allies won’t agree to stop trading with the Iranians on principle alone, maybe they will need some convincing.
Whether that takes the shape of reduced military subsidies (which would probably be bad, after all, we do need to worry about containing the Russians and NATO is a fantastic – if expensive – tool for that purpose) or the imposition of trade sanctions on those nations that refuse to play ball, only time will tell.
Although John Bolton was willing to suggest that the US might sanction its allies to get them to pull out of the Deal, other Trump cabinet members have been more circumspect.
Mike Pompeo said on Sunday morning that the administration hopes to “come up with a deal that really works, that really protects the world from Iranian bad behavior – not just their nuclear program, but their missiles and their malign behavior as well”.
Pompeo also said that he “will work closely with the Europeans to try and achieve that.”
That sounds pretty good. Too bad the last President (and his second-worst Secretary of State after Killary) didn’t think to do that in the first place.
Maybe they were too busy golfing and windsurfing to come up with the idea.
