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| Europe |
| French minister criticizes US over ‘unanswered' Iran attacks |
| 2019-11-28 |
| [Yahoo] France’s defense minister criticized the U.S. on Saturday over what she described as "unanswered" attacks in recent months threatening the Persian Gulf, warning that the decades-long American deterrence in the oil-rich region appeared to be losing its power. It’s starting to seem like the actions we take or don’t take don’t actually matter and Europeans just want somebody to complain about. Florence Parly separately said France "deplored" both U.S. President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of America from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that led to the re-imposition of crushing sanctions, as well as Tehran recently breaking the deal’s enrichment, stockpile and centrifuge limits. The arrogance of France is monumental. Nothing is stopping France from responding, it even mentions they have a base in the region. While saying France would continue to talk to Iran, her speech before the annual Manama Dialogue in Bahrain struck a muscular tone for Paris, which maintains a naval base in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. She said France would push for a European-organized maritime security force in the region that would cooperate with but be separate from an American-organized force. She’s criticizing the US for not bombing Iran after they bombed a ship in the Persian gulf, when France was trying to prevent the US from bombing Iran when this event actually occurred. Reuters adds: Responding to Tehran's move, Washington on Monday said it would deploy about 1,000 more troops to the Middle East on top of a 1,500-troop increase announced following the May tanker attacks. The Pentagon said the new deployment will include Patriot missiles as well as manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft. France and Germany said on Wednesday they would crank up efforts to halt any spiral towards conflict with Iran, but said time was running out and the risk of war could not be ruled out. |
| Posted by:Herb McCoy |