By Finian Cunningham

January 18, 2020 "Information Clearing House" -  The landmark international nuclear accord with Iran is all but dead. President Trump torpedoed it back in May 2018 when he unilaterally withdrew the US. But it was the Europeans who moved this week to sink the deal.

The European troika of Britain, France and Germany – known as the E3 which, in effect, represents the entire EU bloc – announced that they were “regrettably” triggering a dispute mechanism in the nuclear accord because they allege Iran was not complying with restrictions on its nuclear programme.

Iran is thus in a fiendish dilemma. It can’t “comply” according to the European demands because, arguably, it is not actually in a state “non-compliance” with the nuclear treaty, as the EU asserts it is. Unable to fulfil the E3’s impossible demands, the dispute will most likely lead within weeks to the re-imposition of UN economic sanctions on Iran.

At that point, the international nuclear accord will be dead. The European troika claims that it wants to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the pact is formally titled. But their intransigence and treachery towards Iran – and their pandering to US bullying – means that the deal is doomed.

Only Russia and China – the two other signatories to the 2015 accord – have remained steadfast in supporting the JCPOA. Russia this week denounced the E3 move, saying it was not justified. Moscow warned that the baleful direction being taken will lead to further escalation of an already tense stand-off between the US and Iran.

With the US already well out of the JCPOA and the Europeans undermining it further, it looks like the treaty will inevitably collapse and be discarded.