Europe Finally Sanctions Iran

Europe has finally recognized Iran’s deliberate attempts to harm its security. In response to repeated Iranian government-directed assassination attempts of Iranian dissidents in mainland Europe, the EU has announced new financial sanctions on Iran. Is this the beginning of Europe’s biblically prophesied hardened stance on Iran?

Also, National Security adviser John Bolton and United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were in the Middle East this week busily meeting with U.S. allies to try and reassure them after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally declared that U.S. forces were pulling out of Syria. Before Mr. Bolton flew to Turkey, he was here in Israel. While he was here, he gave a statement saying that the U.S. withdrawal would be predicated on the complete defeat of the Islamic State and the safeguarding of the U.S.-backed Kurds in Northern Syria. This very much angered Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who assured Mr. Trump on the phone before his decision to pull out of Syria that Turkey could take care of the rest of the Islamic State. However, everyone knows, and Turkey even stated, that it really wants the U.S. to go so that it can go after what it calls the terrorists, the very Kurdish forces that the United States was fighting alongside. After those comments, Erdoğan refused to meet with Mr. Trump’s emissary. What does this snub say about cooling Turkish-American relations?