By J. Michael Springmann
The article in the Washington Free Beacon is possibly suspect. It's an online newspaper that has Conservative leanings, and sometimes has problems with reporting accurately or using bias in its reporting with loaded words. But, conceivably, somebody in the Trump administration, a spokesman might have contacted them because it is a right-wing organization. If that is so, and if it was in fact not made up by the Washington Free Beacon or changed in some fashion, I think the Europeans would get their backs up about this.
However, in the past, the Europeans have not been terribly strong in their support of Iran and the efforts to circumvent the ridiculous illegal and questionable American sanctions. While the Europeans have been going on about protesting the American sanctions, they let their companies, VW and Renault, and a number of other large firms like Adidas, the shoe people, move out of Iran rather than lose the American market.
And so Trump is threatening the Europeans with sanctioning anybody who is involved with INSTEX - the so far ineffective means of swapping Euros for the Iranian currency. I think it is going to be a way of pressuring the Europeans and the Europeans may well back down.
As to why this happened, I think it's, basically, Israel the apartheid entity, which seems to control the entire world, even to the point of having the Chinese block the visit of an African, Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, who has spoken out against Israel. They have even stopped his podcasts reaching China.
So I think the Israelis are behind this. The Israelis are on a roll. They've gotten the Americans to pressure the United Arab Emirates into establishing diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.
So, why is the United States doing this? It is basically Israeli pressure, Israeli influence, and they have so far succeeded in destroying Lebanon. They destroyed Iraq, they've destroyed Syria, and they are very good at getting what they want from the Americans. The Americans are backing them in their efforts to destroy Iran. And I think they're doubling down on this, again getting the United States involved with more sanctions because Trump wants to play up to the Jewish vote in the country, and also to play up to the Evangelical Christians who support Israel, no matter what.
So I think, on balance, the Europeans are going to knuckle under to the Americans, they will often huff and puff about the situation. But, they will face the threat of sanctions and they will avoid the threat of sanctions. They will lay down and say or do whatever the US wants. "We won't oppose you." And, of course, the Americans are completely under the thrall of the Zionist entity, and they will continue to pressure Iran until Iran is destroyed or the Americans are destroyed in the process.
J. Michael Springmann is a former American diplomat, and political commentator based in Washington, DC. He had formerly worked at the US Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration and as a diplomat with the US Department of State. He had been assigned to Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research in Washington, DC.
He’s the author of two books, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider's View and Goodbye, Europe? Hello, Chaos?: Merkel's Migrant Bomb.
He recorded this article for Press TV website.