The equation is as follows: Syria, where Islamic State terrorists and the Al Nusra Front continue to kill civilians, destroy heritage sites, and seize oil in the areas under their control, needs fuel for its economy to function and for the reconstruction of the country. Add to that, the continuous bombing of U.S. aviation against civilian targets and the Syrian army.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, for its part, is resisting brutal economic and commercial sanctions imposed by the U.S. and needs to export oil, a basic component of its economy.
A third ingredient, Europe, an ally of the United States, has joined the sanctions on Iran and the siege of Syria, and serves as a maritime police force in the persecution and seizure of Iranian ships transporting oil to Syria and elsewhere.Meanwhile, peace appears adrift in the seas and straits, with no support to reach a safe harbor.
In this context, a ship carrying Iranian oil was seized by British authorities in the Straits of Gibraltar, a deliberate act intended to add more tension to an already strained situation.
It would seem necessary, and moreover appropriate for civilized countries which claim to have an independent foreign policy, to reflect on who is to blame that the situation has reached such extremes.
Europeans know that it was President Donald Trump and not the Tehran government that withdrew from one of the most important agreements within the international community in the last decades: the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, signed by five world powers plus the Persian nation.Ambiguous speeches, asserting that Europe prioritizes saving the agreement with Iran, while actions such as the seizure of the oil tanker in international waters, show a dubious policy subordinated to the United States.
Europeans also know that, over the last six years, Syria has suffered the most atrocious terrorist attacks, leaving almost 300,000 people dead; more than five million obliged to emigrate; and its national and world heritage severely damaged or destroyed.
So why has Europe joined a U.S. policy that, for the world, has only meant terror, contempt for human life, and imposition of their interests?Does not European diplomacy know well that blocking the passage of Iranian crude through seas adjacent to their continent is, above all, a premeditated plan by the Trump administration to further aggravate the situation around Syria and Iran, as the Russian Foreign Ministry has denounced?
And, as expected, the first to celebrate the seizure of the Iranian ship, with 300,000 tons of oil aboard, was John Bolton, the senior hawk employed as national security adviser to the Trump government, who described the event as "excellent news."
It is time to stop playing with peace and give it safe harbor, instead of provoking new confrontations that could lead to war and make the seas hell.
