BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2019) Upon his arrival in New York for the UN General Assembly week, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, defiant at home amid the sharpest Brexit drama, has told American television that he wants to see a new "Trump deal" on Iran and considers the US president the "one guy" able to broker the accord - a statement that shatters the EU3 consolidated push to preserve the 2015 hard-won agreement but wins praise from the closest ally.
"To stop Tehran building a bomb, I think there's one guy who can do a better deal, and one guy who understands how to get a difficult partner like Iran over the line, and that is the president of the United States, so I hope that there will be a Trump deal, to be totally honest with you. The reality is that, as President [Donald] Trump rightly said, it was a bad deal. It had many defects. Iran was and is behaving disruptively in the region ... Let's do a better deal," Johnson said in his interview with NBC on Monday.
The remark came just hours after the UK prime minister squarely blamed Tehran "with a very high degree of probability" for the recent attack on Saudi oil facilities, even hinting at sending more military assistance to Riyadh.
Johnson's support was warmly welcomed by Donald Trump: "That's why Boris Johnson is a winner. That's why he's a man who's going to be successful in the UK ... Number one, Boris is a friend of mine, number two, he's very smart, very tough ... The existing deal is ready to expire ... I respect Boris a lot and I'm not at all surprised that he was the first one to come out and say that."
QUID PRO QUO FOR POST-BREXIT TRADE DEAL?
The United Kingdon earlier used to speak with one voice with the other two EU signatories to the Iran deal, France and Germany, in their common commitment to preserve the accord after the US unilateral pullout.
According to experts, Johnson, currently embracing Trump's stance on Iran, obviously hopes to improve chances for a better post-Brexit deal with the United States.
"Johnson needs to conclude a trade agreement with the United States after Brexit. He wants to preserve the prospect of a win-win deal, and so in a way, he is at the mercy of his friend Donald Trump. It is quite possible that Trump, in return for his 'kindness' towards the UK, demands that London support Washington in its desire to strike Tehran harder, militarily if necessary," Brussels-based military expert Pierre Henrot, a former military, told Sputnik.
Johnson is therefore "giving every sign that he has understood this 'give and take'" approach on Iran, according to Henrot.
This very approach, the expert believes, was the reason why Johnson swiftly signed up to the US-led naval mission in the Persian Gulf - unlike his predecessor, Theresa May, who refused to join the initiative, preferring to stick to a more balanced stance on Tehran.
"Despite clear indications that the Iranian regime intended to target British shipping in the region in retaliation for Gibraltar's detention of an Iranian tanker accused of transporting crude oil to Syria in defiance of international sanctions, Mrs May is said to have declined 'repeated overtures' to establish a British-American security operation, because 'it would look like the UK backed Washington's wider hardline stance on Iran,'" Henrot said.
French expert Thierry Coville, however, believes that Johnson pursues a "very clever" policy by accomplishing two goals at once - winning support from Trump while also not burning bridges when it comes to a dialogue with Tehran, unlike Washington itself.
"It is very clever of him ... Johnson is friendlier than ever with the American president now, being one of his very few 'heavyweight' supporters on Iran. So doing, he also secures a good economic deal after Brexit with the US economic partner, and - more importantly - he has not left the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran," Coville, a research fellow at French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs and professor of economics in Novancia business school, told Sputnik.
The United Kingdom also subsequently authorized the release of the Iranian oil tanker seized in Gibraltar, which is an "indication that the British still talk with Iran, more discreetly than [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron, but certainly with efficiency," according to the expert.
Johnson's change of stance on Iran comes as Macron has been seeking to lead the diplomatic efforts to preserve the nuclear deal and settle the US-Iranian row.
Yet, experts believe that there is now not much difference between the two leaders' stances.
Jean-Paul Baquiast, a former top civil servant in ex-French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's government and political analyst, in particular, notes that Macron actually shares "the same point of view" as Johnson embracing Trump's stance on Iran, "although with more caution."
He recalled that the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany in a joint statement on Monday blamed Iran for the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, although the Houthis claimed responsibility for the strike.
"If the United Kingdom had already expressed its suspicions, this is the first time that Paris expressly accuses Tehran of being responsible for airstrikes that have led to a flare-up, at least momentary, of oil prices," Baquiast told Sputnik.
The expert suggested that this shift in EU3 rhetoric might indicate that "they are getting closer" to join Trump in his decision to walk out of the Iran nuclear deal under the pretext that Tehran does not honor its commitments.
"Will Britain and France too, withdraw from the JCPOA, making it now devoid of any purpose? I am afraid unfortunately that it is very possible," he wondered, adding that no one yet wants a war in the region.
Other experts are, however, less pessimistic about the possibility of breaking the nuclear deal deadlock and do not rule out that a new accord may be struck.
"All efforts are going in the same direction: satisfy Donald Trump and propose a new nuclear agreement, that looks at least different enough from the 'old' JCPOA to satisfy the American president, while enabling Iran to go back to square one, once the USA cancels their sanctions," Michel Liegeois, a professor at Belgium's University of Louvain, told Sputnik.
He suggested that now both Macron and Johnson hoped that an agreement would be reached on an additional protocol to the JCPOA that would make the agreement, set to expire in 2025, "perpetual." The possibility of signing such a protocol was stipulated by the 2015 accord itself.
The main purpose is to make this additional protocol "acceptable to both Iran and the USA," according to the expert.
French expert Coville agrees that the sides try to "come up with an agreement, in which nobody would lose face: in other words the old agreement revamped, with the additional protocol that was supposed to start in 2021, advanced to now."
"What could be presented to Trump, would be different enough from the Obama deal, that it would enable Donald Trump to trumpet that this deal is much better than the old one and satisfactory," Coville suggested.
Iran, according to Coville, "could accept that the Additional protocol be advanced" if sanctions were totally removed.
