WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th June, 2019) The present crisis between the United States and Iran finds Washington isolated from the European Union and unable to count on traditional allies in pressuring the Iranian leadership to negotiate a peaceful resolution, according to a report by the Soufan Group on Monday.
"The latest crisis in US-Iran relations is unique in that traditional American allies in Europe have blamed the [Trump] administration, not Iran, for the crisis," the report stated.
The Iranian leadership closely monitors both US policy and politics, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has calculated that war between Tehran and Washington would cause far more problems for US policy, and for President Trump politically, than such action would gain, the report pointed out.
Khamenei and his allies in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and IRGC-Quds Force know that Trump promised to extricate the United States from the region - not to initiate another major regional war that could embroil US forces for decades, the report said.
The EU member states were uniformly critical of the Trump administration's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement, arguing that Iran was complying with the accord, the report said.
The EU member states, as well as Russia and China, blame the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran for causing the latest crisis, according to the report.
In addition, Iran has developed a network of proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain and Afghanistan, giving Tehran confidence that it can retaliate against US actions.
Last week, Trump ordered and later reversed his approval for a US strike on Iranian missile and radar batteries in retaliation for Iran's shoot down of US Navy drone and attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf region, according to published reports. Instead, the United State retaliated with an offensive cyber strike against Iran.
