Khamenei is a DEAD pig retweetet
When Europeans tell you "there was no problems in the Gulf until you started a war," you must understand - they actually believe that. It's the perfect one-sentence summation of both their populations' and governments' sincere belief and foreign policy. They truly think the status quo was just fine, both as it was and with where it was heading.
Europe, after all, was perfectly fine with the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, which everyone knew only slowed Iran's march towards nuclear weapons and did absolutely nothing to stop their decades-long campaign of regional proxy war, terrorism and genocide - in fact, it funded it. When the US changed course from this disastrous policy Europe created a special purpose vehicle (SVP) called "INSTEX" to evade US sanctions and continue trading with Iran. Nor is this new; the EU passed a blocking statute in 1996 to shield European businesses from US sanctions for trading with Iran and Cuba (and reactivated it after the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.)
Nor do they care about the inevitable consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran. It's not like they don't know that a nuclear deterrent will embolden Iran to double down on their decades-long campaign of slaughter via proxy army in every neighboring state, because that's the exact situation with Russia. President Trump told them flat-out that buying Russian energy was collaring themselves and handing the leash to their enemies, and they sneered and laughed him out of the room - and now that Russia's four years into a major land war in Europe that supposedly threatens the security of western Europe, they continue to buy natgas without batting an eyelash. All while screeching at Trump for having the temerity to ask that Europe pay for the American weapons they want sent to Ukraine, of course.
So it's not simply my opinion that Europe sees absolutely no problem with an Iran rendered effectively invincible by a nuclear deterrent holding both the strait of Hormuz and the strait of Bab-El-Mandeb (and thus the Suez canal) at gunpoint and extracting exorbitant fees for every ship that passes. It's not my opinion that they don't give a damn about China then having a stranglehold on two of the most crucial economic arteries on the globe, which they can leave open for themselves and strangle for others if it suits their goals in a fifth-generational war (or even a fourth-generational shooting war over Taiwan.) It's not my opinion that Europe has no qualms about what a nation that's pursued 47 years of regional bloodshed and destabilization *without* a nuclear deterrent will do once it's effectively invincible *and* has the coercive power to buck the sanctions limiting its operational funding. It's empirical truth, because the Europeans didn't give a single rotten damn about it as regards Russia, and now that Russia's raping, kidnapping and outright genociding the Ukrainian people, they still don't give enough of a damn to turn off the tap.
I advance no argument here as concerns the justice, merit or wisdom of Europe's choices. After all, they're simply pursuing their own national interests. I simply want us all to stop pretending that America isn't doing the same thing by choosing *not* to be held at nuke and nozzle point by its enemies indefinitely. Anyone who wants to argue that a nation with eleven carrier battle groups should have chosen the exact same path as Europe is free to do so - but I feel they're obliged to actually do so if they wish to scold the United States without defending Europe's own choices in this matter.
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