Denmark is leading a push for new EU sanctions against
Iran, after its intelligence agencies blamed Tehran for a foiled plot to assassinate
an Iranian dissident on Danish soil. The plot was already uncovered in
September and triggered a massive police operation, in which Denmark shut down
streets and bridges nationwide.
Agencies revealed only this week that the operation probably
had prevented what they say was a plan to kill a member of the Arab separatist
movement ASMLA, which advocates for carving out an independent Arab state from
Iran. A suspect of Iranian origin was arrested two weeks ago.
The arrest could play into the hands of President Trump, who
unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal but has struggled to persuade
European allies to follow suit. The killing of Washington Post contributing
columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 further
complicated Trump’s plans to isolate Tehran, as the Saudis are a key ally in
those efforts. Despite the setbacks, US sanctions on Iran are expected to
have fully begun by Monday.
In a darkly ironic twist, Iran has condemned the Saudi
killing of dissident Khashoggi even as it has a long track record of pursuing
operations against opponents living abroad itself. President Hassan Rouhani
called the killing a “heinous murder” and suggested that the United States was
complicit.
Iran is portraying the Danish incident as an effort to harm
European-Iranian relations at a time when they are under mounting pressure from
the United States.
Europe has continued to back the original nuclear deal and
sought to uphold it without US support, with Denmark being a key force behind
that commitment. At the end of last year, the Danish Export Credit Agency had
approved eight Iranian banks for credit lines or guarantees and vowed to resist
US pressure to dismantle those ties. “If snapback [sanctions] make it illegal
to transfer money out of Iran, we would cover their losses. We offer banks this
risk,” said the agency’s director, Jørn Fredsgaard Sørensen.
This week’s revelations appear to have created a far
different momentum. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has called the
incident “totally unacceptable” and ordered his Foreign Ministry to summon the
Iranian ambassador. “Further actions against Iran will be discussed in the
EU,” Rasmussen wrote on Twitter. It is unclear whether any of those sanctions
would have an effect on the future of the Iran nuclear deal, and EU officials
refrained from lashing out at Iran in public this week.
“Sanctions could be done in a delicate way in which
individuals are targeted rather than the country itself,” said Sanam Vakil, a
fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.
“But this incident makes it harder for the EU and the E3
[Britain, France and Germany] to make their case to defend the deal. It puts
them into an uncomfortable position: They will have to put out a strong message
to Iran whilst at the same time trying to keep the nuclear deal alive,” Vakil
said.
But tensions have been on the rise for a while, especially
after the Iranian regime lashed out at Denmark, among other European countries,
for providing safe harbor to Iranian opposition members. Tehran stepped up its
criticism after more than two dozen Revolutionary Guard members were killed in
an attack during a military parade last month claimed by ASMLA.
In Europe, governments have grown increasingly concerned
that the accusations are to justify Iranian state-led terror plots, with the
aim of silencing opposition groups. European authorities already prevented a
bomb attack on Iranian dissidents in Paris earlier this year and have spotted a
broader uptick in Iranian surveillance operations targeting opposition figures
in Europe and the United States.
The pattern has reminded some European intelligence figures
of the early days of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader, when dozens
of dissidents were killed across Europe in the 1980s.
But curiously, Europe’s response has still been far more
muted than in response to other foreign terrorism plots. After the foiled Paris
attack plot, French authorities seized Iranian assets and publicly blamed the
Iranian Intelligence Ministry, while the regime in Tehran rejected any
responsibility as “categorically false.”
Although some European intelligence members suspect that
Europe’s lack of response to prior attacks may have encouraged larger-scale
operations, others caution that various factions within the Iranian regime are
fighting for dominance. To them, it is unclear why Iran would have pursued an
attack that almost inevitably would have disrupted a deal that has opened up
Iran to foreign investment and trade in recent years. The struggle between
hard-liners and more moderate reformers, they argue, is increasingly fought out
on the streets of Europe.
That’s certainly not how the Trump administration is
interpreting the recent plots, however. “For nearly 40 years, Europe has been
the target of #Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks,” Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo wrote on Tuesday. “We call on our allies and partners to confront the
full range of Iran’s threats to peace and security,” he added.