The memorandum of understanding signed Wednesday evening between Washington and Tehran was certainly greeted with relief in many European capitals. The return of diplomatic negotiations has in fact revived the hope of a prolonged end to the fighting and removes the specter of a serious economic crisis, with the announced resumption of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. But the press on the old continent is generally very critical of the “deal” negotiated by Donald Trump.
In recent hours, a number of titles have not minced their words with regard to this document, and in the background, the results of these three and a half months of clashes. Very far from the polite language and without harshness of the chancelleries, the editorial comments of the last few hours have the accents of severe reports of the football World Cup. “1-0 for Tehran,” referee Judith Poppe in the Tageszeitung, a left-wing German dailythey speak of “catastrophe” ou encore de “désastre”.
For the United States, the war against Iran was “a huge own goal,” summarizes the Danish newspaper Politikenclose to the Danish social democrats. In his editorial, Marcus Rubin explains that “rarely has such a short war caused such considerable damage”, and that the agreement “looks more like a defeat for the United States than an unconditional capitulation on the part of Iran.”
In Spain, Barcelona’s major right-wing daily, La Vanguardia giving themselves the same situation, they decided to read “United States capitulate” and describe Trump as “KO”. L’article va même jusqu’à évoquer le « crepuscule d’une grande puissance ». “And at the end, it’s Iran that wins.” also comments bitterly on Le Temps, in Switzerland. “The memorandum of understanding signed between the United States and Iran shows that the Iranian regime has emerged strengthened from the war which was to destroy it. Donald Trump will have largely underestimated Tehran’s resources,” we read in the columns of the Swiss daily from French-speaking Switzerland.
“Save-who-can”
If Le Soir applauds the end of “the enterprise of destruction” which opened on February 28, the French-speaking Belgian daily is doubtful about the real scope of this peace, carefully surrounded by quotation marks in the text. “It is even too early to rejoice at a hypothetical and extremely fragile end to hostilities,” warns Béatrice Delvaux, “The only real certainty today is that the victory that the American president proclaims signs, on all plans, his immense defeat and a colossal strategic error.” The American “excursion” is also described as “bérezina”, and the “save-who-can” agreement.
One point is particularly commented on. This is the sixth point of the memorandum, according to which the United States and its regional partners must develop “a definitive and mutually agreed plan” worth at least 300 billion dollars (260 billion euros) for reconstruction and development economic in Iran. Not to mention the end of the sanctions mentioned in point 7. “The memorandum between Trump and Iran offers a breath of economic oxygen to the Iranian regime”, which was “weakened before the war”, reminds El Pais.
“A war started to subdue the Islamic Republic therefore risks ending with a tailor-made Marshall plan to ensure its survival,” Corriere della Sera (center right), in Italy, is also surprised. The author of the article, Greta Privitera, analyzes like many foreign colleagues that Iran has “won” and that the balance is much more in its favor. “The regime has come into conflict with a fragile economy and demonstrations “he emerges with a proven deterrence on the ground, a reaffirmed international centrality and, above all, the awareness that in Washington, there is no desire to repeat such an experience of silence,” she concludes. Same type of review for La Stampaheadlined by “these 300 billion that the Iranian regime is taking in”.
An agreement that “exceeds many pessimistic scenarios”
More measured, the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza puts the two belligerents back to back. “The four-month balance shows that both sides are paying a very high price for the conflict […] It is difficult to find victories in the confrontation between the United States and Israel “with the Iranians”, write its editors. But the analysis is not to the benefit of Washington, in this country firmly attached to NATO.
This epilogue, if it were to be confirmed in several weeks, would be the last straw for the American president, who criticized during his first term the “pallets of cash” sent to Iran under the Obama administration, after the Vienna agreement on nuclear power 2015. The current tenant of the White House “found himself justifying the potential return of a much larger set of assets”, reports the Guardian, across the Channel. The British daily notes that it is no coincidence that “for several days the Trump administration has hesitated to make public the text of its memorandum of understanding”, given the criticism emerging in its own camp.
Pour Die Welt, Germanythe draft agreement is “explosive” and “exceeds many pessimistic scenarios”, because it “suggests that Tehran could have imposed itself on essential points”.
From one end of Europe to the other, several commentators are ultimately wondering what the benefit was for the United States of this warlike intervention. “What it says is that Iran reiterates its old promise to never acquire nuclear weapons. The other thorny questions are postponed until later. In other words, the world is back to square one, that is, to the situation that prevailed before the war.” depicts the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “After all the bombings of recent months, the Americans are returning to the discussions that were already underway before the start of the war,†also abounds the Dutch media De Volkskrant. Editor-in-chief Pierre Giesen is of the opinion that the four months of clashes “have yielded nothing, except that it has become clear that the strong are less strong than they think.” Corriere della Sera considers that the memorandum, in terms of nuclear power, constitutes a major “referral”. “Tehran once again commits not to build the bomb, but the fate of enriched materials, future limits and the inspection regime are deferred to the final agreement,” its editorial warns.
« Trump n’a jusqu’à pré©sent résolu qu’un seul problème qu’il a lui-même créé »
“Basically, Trump has so far only solved one problem that he himself created: the Hormuz road must be reopened, but perhaps with costs in the future,†squeaks the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The most widely distributed German newspaper in the world could not help but make the comparison with the agreement reached by Barack Obama. It is “unlikely” that a new agreement could “surpass” it, writes Nikolas Busse. And to conclude: “This is not a new Middle East, it is more like a new chapter in the well-known Middle East.”
The comments are all the more negative when the headlines recall the initial reasons for the American commitment, namely the neutralization of the nuclear program and uranium stocks, or even the desire to see a change of regime, after the bloodily repressed demonstrations in January. “The United States entered the war with maximalist objectives and emerged with the pragmatic decision to end the conflict, despite the political cost that this entailed,” condenses the Guardian, a British left-wing daily. “Practically no decisive war objective has been achieved to date,” summarizes the FAZ in Frankfurt.
Many editorial staff zoom out on the analysis and also focus on the consequences for the entire region. Le Soir assesses this agreement as “a humiliation for Netanyahu”. “Kept away from negotiations between the United States and Iran, the Israeli Prime Minister must take note of an agreement which sounds in theory like the death knell of his policy of eradicating the Iranian regime and its allies,” analyzes the Belgian daily. Le Temps points out that Iran can ultimately be satisfied with provoking “dissension between the two allies who shape the Middle East: Israel and the United States.” El Pais warned in passing that the question of Lebanon remains at present “one of the main difficulties for a final agreement”.
There also remains a major lesson, which can also potentially reshape the region, according to Politiken: “The war showed that Iran is capable of closing the important Strait of Hormuz and that the United States cannot effectively protect its Arab allies against Iranian missile and drone attacks.” “.
