Could Boris Kill the Iran Deal?

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Question Time last week, the newly reelected Johnson reacted to his first foreign policy test by saying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a “shell that is currently being voided,” but is still “the best way of preventing nuclear proliferation in Iran.”

But after President Trump called on the Europeans to abandon the “foolish Iran Deal,” Johnson’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab went further than his boss. Meeting with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, he said, “We’ve reached a point where noncompliance has been so acute in the most recent steps taken by Iran, that obviously we’re going to be looking very hard at what should happen next.”

And after the unprecedented arrest of Rob Macaire, Britain’s ambassador to Iran, while leaving a vigil in memory of the passengers of the downed jet last week, Raab was unsparing in his criticism, calling the incident a “flagrant violation of international law” and saying that Iran risked “pariah status.”

If Raab’s comments signal a realignment of British policy on the Iran issue, that would break the fragile European unity that has held since Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018. As European leaders met in Brussels last Friday, Hungary’s President Viktor Orban called for Europe’s Iran policy to be “oriented toward the Israeli-United States stance.” Even though Iran has violated some of the deal’s provisions — announcing an end to limits on uranium enrichment that could pave the way toward a nuclear bomb — it hasn’t walked away from the deal altogether. That’s because Tehran has been looking to Europe to skirt US sanctions.