Islam Times - Why Is Poland Picked to Host Anti-Iranian Conference?

Islam Times - During the US Secretary of State's visit to the West Asia region, one news made big headlines: Poland will host an anti-Iranian conference on February 13 and 14.

The news first was broken by Mike Pompeo on the sidelines of his visit to Egypt on Friday during a press conference. He told the journalists that his country will soon co-host with Poland an international conference attended by many countries in the Polish capital Warsaw with its main focus being stability, security, and freedom in West Asia region. He added that the meeting also will discuss ways to confront Iran in the region.

Picking Poland to host the anti-Iranian meeting is important. Three issues explain why the upcoming gathering is scheduled to be held in the Eastern European country.

European signatories of Iran nuclear deal divided with Trump

Traditionally, the anti-Tehran conferences are more hosted by the Western European states, mainly France and Britain, and Germany, than the Eastern European states. But this time the US-sponsored meeting is not hosted by a Western European capital. The reason seems clear: The three European signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCOPA), an agreement reached with Tehran in 2015, want to keep the deal alive, despite Trump withdrawal in May and reinstating the sanctions lifted under the accord.

So, at least for now, the conflict of ideas with the US makes the three European countries avoid hosting a conference hostile to Tehran. Odds are that the US Department of State has raised the idea of hosting the conference with Paris, Berlin, or London, but they rejected the idea. So, as a result of a division between the trio and Washington on how to deal with Iran after Trump pullout, Warsaw was picked as the venue for the event.

Deepening the gaps between Eastern and Western Europe

On the other side, there is a possibility that due to the rejection of US suggestion to host the anti-Iranian meeting by London, Paris, and Berlin, picking Poland can look like a smart choice by the Americans to further split the relationship between Europe’s east and west. The US could easily hold its conference in another Western European country or in an allied Arab country like the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. But it picked Poland to display the Eastern European leaders as more harmonious to the US than the Western Europeans.

Earlier, Albania, under the US pressures, expelled two Iranian diplomats, showing off its being an easy puppet to Washington. Now the Poles are hosting the anti-Iranian event to exhibit their hostile approach to Tehran compared to Western Europe.

So far, Trump administration has shown a desire to crack the EU and undermine it. Prime Minister of Britain Theresa May, after Trump’s London visit in mid-July 2017, revealed that the American leader asked her to file a complaint against EU over the Brexit case, a move that could compound the intra-European cleavage. With this in mind, the White House appears to seek to sow division between Europe’s east and west by picking Poland for the meeting, beside taking advantage of Warsaw to proceed with its anti-Iranian hostility.

Poland’s ruling party and Trump on the same wavelength

Presently, Poland is ruled by the most rightist and hardline political party in the history of the country. The leaders of Law and Justice Party (PIS) adopt an approach similar to Trump’s in politics, with highly racial, anti-migration, and pro-Zionist policies. Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish Prime Minister is a stalwart advocate of a controversial law recognizing the Holocaust. Last year, Trump started his European tour as the US president from Warsaw. In fact, the current US and Poland leaders share a critical view against the Western and European social liberalism. Prioritizing the right-wing and anti-Muslim groups’ interests, they seek to severely pressure countries like Iran which are non-compliant to the West.