Trump’s threats against Iran aggravate German-American tensions
By
Johannes Stern
14 October 2017
In a militarist speech at the White House, US President Donald Trump announced new sanctions against Iran and threatened to terminate the 2015 nuclear agreement with the country. “Iran is not living up to the spirit of the deal,” said Trump yesterday. As a result, there will be new “tough sanctions” imposed on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, described by Trump as a “corrupt terror force.”
The US government will not re-certify the deal negotiated in 2015 and will leave it up to Congress to “strengthen” it. Should Iran not come to terms with the US Congress and others, Washington will terminate the agreement. The agreement “is under continuous review,” warned Trump, “our participation can be cancelled by me, as President, at any time. As we have seen in North Korea, the longer we ignore a threat, the worse that threat becomes.”
Trump’s aggressive course of action against Iran has elicited strong reactions in Berlin. Shortly after Trump’s speech, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel stepped before the cameras to declare: “That is a problematic and, in our view, dangerous sign. The deal with Iran showed for the first time that it is possible to prevent war through negotiations and, above all, to prevent a country from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Gabriel, along with other leading political and media figures, have previously warned of the far-reaching military, political and economic consequences that could follow such a step. “A termination of the Iran agreement would turn the Middle East into a hotbed of crisis,” Gabriel said in an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
Asked if Trump was playing with “world peace in the…