Several parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) have engaged in actions that threaten to undermine the agreement. The Iranians have now undertaken five calculated breaches of their commitments. In response, the European signatories France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (“E3”) temporarily triggered the deal’s dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) on 14 January 2020. The loss of trust between the three European states and Iran is very clear — the Europeans have attempted to play a mediating role vis-à-vis the United States, which withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, but in Iran’s view have not done enough to preserve the benefits it was promised under the deal.
Moreover, France, Germany and the United Kingdom have lost their face-saving capacity which will be required to get the Iranians to the table. All of this is happening while the U.S. continues to escalate its sanctions pressure against Tehran, with the ostensible goal of getting the Iranians to the table to negotiate a new deal. From Washington's point of view, two other topics should be discussed in addition to Iran’s nuclear program: its missile programs and its destabilizing external behavior.
Credible new actors
A lot is at stake. New actors and an expanded discussion format are needed to reduce tensions, to account for U.S. concerns, and to maintain the substance of the agreement. In terms of new actors, Austria, Finland, and Switzerland could provide important diplomatic support (“good offices”). None are encumbered by previous association with the JCPOA. On the diplomatic stage, they are recognized as experienced, credible, and honest top-class brokers. These “New 3” are also Europeans.
Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, but it does represent U.S. interests in Iran. Their political advantage compared to Germany, France, and the U.K. is in their lower profile, which could make them seem less threatening to U.S. President Donald Trump — though all three would need to resist any attempts at economic blackmail from the United States.
An important first symbolic step would be for Austria and Switzerland to join the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) that France, Germany, and the U.K. established last year to facilitate trade between Europe and Iran by circumventing U.S. sanctions.
Fresh ideas
The “New 3” are neither there to “fill in” the deficits of the three European members of the JCPOA, nor to carry out a parallel foreign policy agenda. The momentum of new EU Foreign Policy High Representative Josep Borrell needs to be coordinated and enriched with fresh ideas. All agree that they are opposed to increased hostility from Washington. Overall, the European position must be visibly strengthened and expanded. The “New 3” will only be heard if they — with all obvious limits — have a recognizable added value to offer.
The “New 3” could bring a renewed push to deescalate tensions. The ”E3” pulled the ripcord on their decision to invoke the DRM in early February by suspending the mechanism that would most likely have led the dispute to the United Nations Security Council and thus to the reimposition of international sanctions against Iran.
Despite their breaches of the JCPOA’s terms regarding uranium enrichment, the Iranians continue to allow the controls and inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency without restrictions, apparently until just recently. The agreement is currently hanging by this thread. Both sides looked into the abyss and are afraid of the measures they have themselves undertaken. But does this look like conflict management? A coolly calculated procedure by the “E3” cannot be granted. The most urgent role of Austria, Finland, and Switzerland would therefore be as a corrective to the course the "E3" has chosen.
Bern, Helsinki, and Vienna could also act as face-saving relay stations between the JCPOA parties for the purposes of confidence-building. For example, they could be the ones to suggest to the Iranians that their expectations of the Europeans cannot be met structurally under the conditions that have been created by the Trump administration — in other words, that it is impossible for the “E3” to find a way to allow Tehran to continue selling oil despite U.S. sanctions.In addition, Bern, Vienna, and Helsinki could be asked to provide a confidential discussion framework in their capitals for official contacts between the main counterparts. The importance of this function, similar to the role Oman played in the preparatory talks between Iran and the U.S. that led to the JCPOA, cannot be overestimated in the current difficult situation.
A broader scope
There are two avenues for expanding the scope of the discussion format beyond Iran’s nuclear program. First, the JCPOA, with all its unprecedented requirements in the nuclear field, serves as a kind of “nuclear-weapon-free zone” agreement for Iran. At the upcoming Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York, it would be a leap forward if the JCPOA, with the help of the Iranians, became the model for talks on the Middle East-wide nuclear weapons-free zone that has been sought for decades, without results.
Second, the “New 3” could play a pioneering role for an innovative path on Iran’s missile program that encourages discussion in Tehran, in order to compensate for the failure of the “E3” to protect Iran’s benefits under the JCPOA. Iran will sooner or later have to include its missile programs in diplomatic talks simply because of Washington's demands. However, the proposals from Europe on this issue lack an understanding of the historically determined central role of ballistic missiles in Iran's military strategy. Tehran's missile arsenal cannot be seen in isolation from the region's political constellations and military dynamics. This is where the arsenals of Iran's main opponents, Saudi Arabia and Israel, come into play, in addition to the U.S. military presence.
It therefore makes sense to refrain from focusing exclusively on Iran's capacities in this area and to pursue a regional approach that also includes the capacities of these two main opponents and thus increases the number of actors (Iran's ally Syria should also be part of this setting). The discussion format is thus not only thematic, but also expanded to include important regional players. In short, no stone should be left unturned to save the nuclear deal with Iran, including the involvement of more parties and a broader scope for negotiations.
Adj. Prof. em. Dr. Bernd W. Kubbig was Project Director at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and Adjunct Professor (Privatdozent) at Goethe University, Frankfurt/M., Germany. He has directed the Program on Missile Defense International; and since 2006 he has been coordinating the international expert group on the Establishment of a Missile Free Zone in the Middle East, culminating in the Routledge study, "Arms Control and Missile Proliferation in the Middle East." In 2011, he founded the Academic Peace Orchestra Middle East (APOME) and was the Editor of the Policy Brief series. He has specialized in U.S. foreign and security policy, with a focus on the Middle East, missile defense, and space.
Marc Finaud is a former French diplomat who has been seconded to the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) between 2004 and 2013 and now works for this international foundation, where he trains diplomats and military officers in international and human security, and conducts research in those fields. During his 36-year career as a diplomat (from 1977 to 2013), he served in several bilateral postings (in the Soviet Union, Poland, Israel, Australia) as well as in multilateral missions (to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Conference on Disarmament, the United Nations). He holds Master’s degrees in International Law and Political Science. He was also Senior Resident Fellow (WMD Program) at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) between 2013 and 2015. He is now also a Swiss citizen. List of publications: www.gcsp.ch/marc-finauds-publication
Top image credit: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during a press conference regarding legislation that would block offensive U.S. weapons sales to Israel, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., November 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Will Senate vote signal a wider shift away from Israel?
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have been roundly criticized for the security lapse that put journalist Jeffrey Goldberg into a Signal chat where administration officials discussed bombing Houthi forces in Yemen, to the point where some, like Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) have called for their resignations.
But the focus on the process ignores the content of the conversation, and the far greater crime of continuing to provide weapons that are inflaming conflicts in the Middle East and enabling Israel’s war on Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of over 50,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
As Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies noted in an article in The Nation, the real disgrace in “Signalgate” was not the inclusion of a journalist in sensitive conversations, it is the continued bombing of Yemen without congressional authorization, with all the human consequences it entails:
“[T]he biggest threat—that has already resulted in real lives lost—is being ignored. And that is the threat to the lives of Yemeni people—who, how many, how many were children, we still don’t know—being killed by US bombs across the poorest nation in the Arab world.”
It’s important to put the U.S. battle with the Houthis in context. The Houthi campaign to block shipping in the Red Sea is a reaction to Israel’s war on the people of Gaza. Continued U.S. military support for Israel is the fuel that is sustaining conflicts throughout the region, from Yemen to Lebanon, and, if Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has his way, in Iran.
Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff has said the U.S. supports resuming ground operations in Gaza, blaming Hamas from rejecting new conditions for continuing the ceasefire.
Only a minority of members of Congress have taken a stand against U.S. military support for Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza or its escalation of the fighting to other parts of the region. Last November, resolutions brought by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) designed to block parts of a $20 billion arms package to Israel received 19 votes in favor — a long way from a majority, but the first time Congress had taken action on the issue of U.S. provision of arms to Israel.
Now Sanders is bringing new joint resolutions of disapproval to block an $8.56 billion sale of bombs and other munitions to Israel. Sanders said he is doing so in order to “end our complicity in the carnage,” adding that “it would be unconscionable to provide more of the bombs and weapons Israel has used to kill so many civilians and make life unlivable in Gaza.”
More than 50,000 people have died from Israel’s military attacks on Gaza. And a paper by Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins for the Brown University Costs of War Project estimates that at least an additional 62,000 have died from indirect causes like preventable disease and malnutrition.
The United States gave Israel $17.9 billion in military aid in the first year of the war in Gaza — October 2023 to the end of September of 2024. But arms offers since that time — sales beyond the $17.9 billion in military aid, including items that have yet to be delivered — total over $30 billion. These weapons could enable Israeli aggression for years to come. The current deal is particularly concerning because it consists mostly of bombs and missiles of the kind used in Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza.
While handling of classified information is a real issue, enabling collective punishment and taking military action without congressional approval are far more important with respect to their human consequences abroad and the prospects for restoring democratic input on issues of war and peace at home. The press needs to widen its lens and take on these life and death issues on a more consistent basis.
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Top photo credit: German Prime Minister-in-waiting Friedrich Merz (Shutterstock.Penofoto)
Recent polls show the center right Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) headed by prospective chancellor Friedrich Merz losing ground against the populist right Alternative for Germany (AfD), even before the new government has been formed.
The obvious explanation is widespread popular dissatisfaction with last month’s vote pressed through the outgoing parliament by the CDU-CSU and presumptive coalition partner the SPD (with the Greens) to allow unlimited increases in defense spending. This entailed disabling the constitutional “debt brake” introduced in 2009 to curb deficits and public debt.
The new parliament, with the AfD as the main opposition party, took its seats last week. The AfD opposes financing rearmament by a massive upsurge in public debt, and supports negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Die Linke (the Left) which substantially improved its position in the February elections, opposes rearmament and favors peaceful conflict resolution. Polls show support for Die Linke has also risen since the elections.
Mainstream consensus on financing rearmament
The aversion to incurring debt to finance public expenditure, including for defense, has been a central policy tenet of the German center-right CDU-CSU. The Zeitenwende (epochal change) declared by Chancellor Scholz in 2022 provided an exceptional $100 billion in funding for defense, allowing Germany to reach the 2% of GDP target set by NATO last year.
However, the latest move by Merz — which can be seen as an intensified Zeitenwende — permits any defense expenditure in excess of 1% of GDP to be exempted from the debt brake’s provisions. The justification given is a potential Russian military threat and the conviction that the U.S. is bent on reducing its commitments to the conventional defense of Europe.
Merz’s CDU is paying the price with its fiscally conservative voters, who oppose incurring new public debt for the defense hike, rather than cutting spending to pay for it. These voters view Merz’s turnaround on fiscal probity as a betrayal of his own election campaign program.
Presumably, the rise in AfD support comes from the defection of some of the CDU-CSU voters. Although Scholz and his cabinet resigned on March 25, they remain as caretakers until the new government under Merz is formed, perhaps as early as Easter.
Public opinion and the mainstream parties’ program
Tension between the mainstream parties’ determination to continue arming Ukraine and a growing preference among much of the public for seeking a negotiated outcome has for some time been evident. The Ebert Foundation’s Security Radar 2025 report documents rising public anxiety in Germany and elsewhere in Europe about possible escalation of the war in Ukraine, with for example, 59% of Germans worried the war might escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, anda majority of (54%) of Germans agreed that defense spending should increase, with 36% opposed.
However, 53% favored a negotiated settlement of the war even if Ukraine has to sacrifice territory. A third of Germans favored NATO membership for Ukraine, a quarter favored supporting Ukraine “until it wins” and only 11% favored deploying German troops to Ukraine.
These findings suggest that the customary German reticence about armed conflict and preference for peaceful conciliation of conflicts has not been overtaken by any martial fervor.
The German public favors increasing defense spending, so long as this is understood as taking responsibility for the conventional defense of Germany itself, rather than giving priority to aiding Ukraine’s defense in the current war. The Security Radar report discerned across Europe a mood expressed by the slogan “my country first.”
How much and how soon will spending increase?
The actual magnitude of a boost to defense spending in the coming few years remains a matter for the coalition’s programmatic document (still being negotiated). The relaxation of defense spending has so far produced an additional 3 billion euros for Ukraine in 2025, to be added to the 4 billion euros already approved for 2025. This includes German made air defense systems which will need two years to be produced. There is no indication yet of the release of a torrent of new money or weapons to Ukraine.
Neither outgoing Chancellor Scholz nor Friedrich Merz has indicated Germany would contribute troops for the “coalition of the willing” peacekeeping effort advanced by UK PM Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. The question of providing Taurus missiles to Ukraine will likely arise again soon after the new government takes office. Merz has previously advocated sending these, or at least threatening to do so to exact concessions from Russia. Throughout his tenure, Scholz firmly resisted pressure to provide these missiles.
A recent report from the Breugel economic think tank estimates what defense equipment, manpower, and industrial developments would be needed for Europe to assume most or all of Europe’s conventional defense without the United States.
The authors argue that Germany needs to raise its defense spending to 3.5% of GDP within the next three years and had to lift public debt limits to do so. They suggest that Europe would face several serious constraints in attempting to replace in a timely way the American material and technical contributions to the Ukrainians in a continuing war.
Many economists, market analysts, and the DAX stock market index responded positively to the planned increases in defense spending, predicting a recovery of Germany’s weak economy as the plan is implemented. The plan includes a 500-billion-euro fund for infrastructure modernization to be spent over 12 years.
What's ahead?
In essence, the funding of a major increase in German defense spending belongs in the logic of burden-shifting of continental conventional defense from the United States onto NATO’s European members. It rests upon the anticipated continued engagement of the Americans in NATO, in the hope that a new division of labor will convince the Americans of the value of their ongoing engagement in European security.
Moreover, the spending increase will need to be sustainable over years in order for the conventional capability of Germany to compensate for an American drawdown of forces deployed in Europe. Because the rearmament aims to achieve greater “independence” from the U.S., the German and European arms industry stands to benefit.
The European public is seemingly not fully convinced of the necessity to embrace a radically changed security stance for Germany and the European members of NATO. In order to ensure stability and win long-lasting public support, the burden-shifting of conventional defense in Europe should be paired with renewal of diplomatic contacts with Russia, and with an agenda of arms control and mutual confidence building measures.
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Top Image Credit: The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), foreground, leads a formation of Carrier Strike Group Five ships as Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft and Navy F/A-18 Hornet aircraft pass overhead for a photo exercise during Valiant Shield 2018 in the Philippine Sea Sept. 17, 2018. The biennial, U.S. only, field-training exercise focuses on integration of joint training among the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. This is the seventh exercise in the Valiant Shield series that began in 2006. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Erwin Miciano)
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) conducted an airstrike in Somalia against ISIS targets on Saturday, killing “multiple ISIS-Somalia operatives.” It was the eighth such strike in the short time that Trump has been in office, reflecting a quiet, but deadly American campaign in a part, of the world that remains far below the public radar.
“AFRICOM, alongside the Federal Government of Somalia and Somali Armed Forces, continues to take action to degrade ISIS-Somalia's ability to plan and conduct attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces, and our civilians abroad,” a Sunday AFRICOM press release stated.
The military said the attack against ISIS-Somalia, Islamic State’s small branch there, was coordinated in tandem with the Somali government and Somali Armed Forces.
Saturday’s attack follows a Trump administrationdecision in late February to ease rules guiding U.S. raids and airstrikes outside conventional battlefields; that move was made with al Shabaab, another Islamist group in the region, in mind.
What’s more, AFRICOM struck Somalia eight times between February 1 and March 15, reportedly conducting “collective self-defense airstrike[s] against al Shabaab” in some of the cases, and striking ISIS-Somalia in some others.
“Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!,” Donald Trump previously said of an early February AFRICOM strike on ISIS-Somalia on X.
“The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!,’” he wrote.
A Somali government official told Nick Turse at the Intercept, that despite the military’s assertion that it had been working in coordination with the Somali government on that February strike, that little advance notice of the attack was provided to officials in Mogadishu.
The U.S. has been blasting away at Somalia since at least 2007, and has carried out military operations there since 2002 despite no formal declaration of war. Successive administrations have been using the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Force (AUMF) as a blanket authorization to bomb targets in Somalia since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
There are also an estimated 450 American troops stationed there, after President Biden reversed a Trump era decision to move them all out.
Despite his decision to withdraw boots on the ground, the last Trump administration authorized over 200 air strikes against al Shabaab and IS in Somalia. In comparison, the Biden administration struck Somalia a declared 39 times over its four year term through 2024.
AFRICOM says ISIS-Somalia’s “malicious efforts threaten U.S. security interests.” In contrast, Intercept reporter Nick Turse points out how far away that threat really is.
“ISIS–Somalia is a tiny organization that operates primarily in the Golis Mountains of the Bari region in Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland state,” he wrote in February. “There is no evidence the group has the capability to target the United States.”
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