Iran and immigrtion to Europe

The flaws in the eurozone and mass immigration are two major problems of the EU that in some ways reinforce each other. And either of them individually could cause a serious breakdown in the EU or an even moer drastic reduction in its size than Brexit provides.

Christiane Hoffmann highlights the Middle East foreign policy aspects of the immigration crisis in a way that, it seems to me, the major media in Austria and Germany seriously neglect: the connection between American/NATO policies and actions in the Middle East and the immigration pressures on Europe. ("Die kommende Krise", Der Spiegel 33-2018/11.08.2018)

There are two centrally important pieces to the real existing immigration problem in Europe, as opposed to the phony ones created in the minds of xenophobic European politicians. (And the Russian propaganda that sometimes utilizes them for their own purposes.) One is that the world is undergoing a mass movement of people that seems to be more drastic than anything before in human history. This is being driven by climate change and various effects of globalization, like the driving down of wages, and the climate crisis and digitial communication.

Second are the wars in the Middle East. The acute phase of the immigration crisis in 2015 on which the rightwing populists are still surfing politically was driven in major part by the Syrian civil war - which was generated at least in part by a severe draught - as well as by the war in Afghanistan, which is part of what Andrew Bacevich calls the Greater Middle East, though the term hasn't caught on widely yet. The spectacularly ill-advised NATO intervention in Libya which resulted in Libya falling into a failed-state condition also contributed mightily.

I call mass immigration issue as a longterm crisis for Europe, that has acute phases like 2015. (That terminology also seems not to have caught on beyond myself, but I'm sticking with it!) A new acute wave could be activated by a war with Iran or by a decision on Turkey's part to stop holding the nearly 3 million refugees they are now housing and sending some large portion of them to Europe.

What Hoffmann says about EU policy in relation to Iran sounds to me like straighforward realism, which more often than not is a good thing:

Anfang November will Trump eine weitere Sanktionsrunde folgen lassen, dann soll Iran kein Öl mehr exportieren können, die USA wollen die Lebensader der iranischen Wirtschaft kappen. Die EU bemüht sich um das Atomabkommen, sie leistet Widerstand gegen die US-Sanktionen und sucht nach Wegen, um den Iranhandel trotz der amerikanischen Strafmaßnahmen aufrechtzuerhalten. Das ist richtig, aber nicht genug. Die Gefahr geht mittlerweile weit über ein Ende des Atomabkommens hinaus.

Es reicht deshalb nicht mehr, dass sich die Europäer für das Atomabkommen einsetzen. Sie müssen in Washington sehr deutlich sagen, dass die Politik der Destabilisierung Irans und des Nahen Ostens gegen die Sicherheitsinteressen Europas verstößt. Trumps Nahostpolitik muss zu einer Priorität der europäischen Politik werden. Deutschland und Europa brauchen jetzt, anders als in den vorangegangenen Krisen, endlich eine vorausschauende, präventive Außenpolitik.

{At the beginning of November, Trump wants to impose a wider round of sanctions, which are expected to stop Iran from exporting any more oil, because the US wants to cut off the vital lines of the Iranian economy. The EU is trying to stick with the nuclear agreement, it is resisting the US sanctions, and is looking for ways to maintain Iranian trade despite the American punitive measures. That is correct, but not enough. The danger in the meantime reach much further than the end of the nuclear agreement.

It is no longer sufficient for the Europeans to adhere to the nuclear agreement. The must also say very clearly to Washington that the policy of destabilization violates Europe's security interests. Trump's Near East policy needs to become a priority of European politics. Germany and Europe now reallyneed, differently than in the previous crises, a far-sighted, preventive foreign policy.}

Angela Merkel is rightly criticized for her extend-and-pretend solutions to problems of the EU. The classic example was the "bailout" of Greece in 2015, which imposed severe Herbert Hoover/Heinrich Brüning austerity policies on a Greek economy already suffering a severe depression. And did so knowing that the measures would fail to fulfill their claimed purpose of restoring the economy - the "pretend" part. But the "extend" part was that it crushed the Greek opposition to the austerity madness and maintained the general neoliberal economic policies dominating the EU and did so without breaking up the eurozone with all the far-reaching consequences that would imply.

It's hard not to admire Merkel's skills as a political leader, however bad her policies may be. And it's true that kicking the can down the road, to use an American expression for extend-and-pretend, is usually an attractive option for politicians. And, in practical terms, sometimes the only feasible course when there is a political deadlock over an issue.

But it's one thing to kick the can down the road on a county zoning regulation. Doing so on the major problems that could wreck the EU is a whole different thing. As Hoffmann notes, Merkel herself has stated that ignoring the immigration issue too much prior to 2015 was a bad idea. And, to be realistic, Merkel during the immigration crisis in 2015 did seriously try to implement an EU-wide rule that actually would have provided a sensible and practical revision of the Dublin Regulations regime that had by then very plainly failed. But it was blocked by Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Also to be realistic, that failure during the acute immigration situation in 2015 was in significant part due to the stunning arrogance Merkel and other EU leaders showed in the Greek crisis that year. But that's a story for another time.

Hoffmann may be over-estimating the chances of Iran becoming a "second Syria," i.e., a country with a full-blown civil war. An external war initiated or encouraged by the Trump Administration is probably the greater danger. But Hoffmann's advice would still be well-taken. And at some point with real crises, the extend-and-pretend possibilties run out.

This is an August 5 English-language documentary on Iran from Deutsche Welle, Iran: from theocracy to regional superpower?