‘US is trying to break up Europe’: Controversial Iran conference opens in Poland

US-led Middle East summit kicks off in Warsaw

Some are dismissing it as a mere “photo op”, a chance to show the ideologically motivated benefactors of Donald Trump’s administration that it is doing something to counter Iran.

Others, notably conservatives in Washington, say the high-profile but still murky two-day Middle East summit of foreign ministers in Warsaw beginning Wednesday is an historic event, bringing together Arab and Israeli officials in the beginnings of a regional coalition against the Islamic Republic. US officials say representatives of 60 countries including dozens of foreign ministers will attend.

“We are going to gather up to talk about the future of Middle East stability and prosperity,” US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, one of the organisers of the summit, said Tuesday night. “We’ll talk about the Middle East peace plan, we’ll talk about ... Counterterrorism, we’ll talk about how these countries can work together. This is a global coalition that is built to deliver on the important mission of reducing the risk that has emanated from the Middle East for far too long.”

The conference is sure to spark controversy. On Wednesday, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani called for immediate regime change in Iran during a speech in the Eastern European city.

“Within a few years a free Iran will be one of the leading nations in the world,” he told a cheering crowd of supporters from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organisation, a cult-like Iranian opposition group. “We are going to have the celebration sooner rather than later in Tehran and I want to be there with you.”

European officials, especially those from France and Germany, are livid about the conference, which they see not only as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Tehran, but to hoodwink member states into appearing to lend support to a hardline White House agenda shaped by freelancers such as Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who will also attend the summit.

“There has been a big push by the Europeans to dilute the Iran element of the summit so it doesn’t seem they’re joining up for ed from the Middle East for far too long.”

The conference is sure to spark controversy. On Wednesday, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani called for immediate regime change in Iran during a speech in the Eastern European city.

“Within a few years a free Iran will be one of the leading nations in the world,” he told a cheering crowd of supporters from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organisation, a cult-like Iranian opposition group. “We are going to have the celebration sooner rather than later in Tehran and I want to be there with you.”

European officials, especially those from France and Germany, are livid about the conference, which they see not only as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Tehran, but to hoodwink member states into appearing to lend support to a hardline White House agenda shaped by freelancers such as Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who will also attend the summit.

“There has been a big push by the Europeans to dilute the Iran element of the summit so it doesn’t seem they’re joining up for this maximum pressure bandwagon,” Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy head of the Middle East programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said. “They’ve been pushing for adding how to deal with the Yemen ceasefire or peace-building in Syria. They push hard to make it far less about Iran and more about the Middle East.”

But in addition to the various criss-crossing conflicts in the Middle East and what many describe as the Trump administration’s bumbling way of handling them, the Warsaw conference intersects with at least two other festering crises on the global agenda: fears of Russian expansion into Eastern Europe, and tensions within the EU amid the rise of right-wing populism.

Poland risked alienating both its EU partners and Iran by agreeing to host the summit, in part to win support in Washington for a permanent military base in the country – in a bid to fend off any potential Kremlin advances.

“This conference is a gamble,” said Robert Czulda, a professor of Middle East studies at the University of Lodz. “For Poland, Russia is still a threat. This is the most important dimension of our foreign policy. The main ambition of the Polish government is to have US bases like Germany has US bases.”

The conference also comes at a time of deep divisions within EU over a number of major issues, including the right-wing populist drift of some member states, including Poland and Hungary. EU officials are said to be enraged that the Trump administration, which has sought to widen divisions within the bloc, is seeking to peel off some member states like Poland by getting it to downgrade its ties with Brussels.

“The Americans are trying to break up Europe,” fumed one European diplomat.

Mr Pompeo first promoted the conference last month as a way to curtail Iran’s influence in the region, but US officials later sought to water down the Iranian focus of the gathering, dropping the word “Iran” from the name of the confab and rebranding it a summit to promote “peace”.

There was talk that Trump would unveil elements of a grand Israeli-Palestinian peace deal at the summit, but Palestinian representatives are boycotting the summit and have pre-emptively rejected any decisions that emerge from it.

France and Germany will dispatch junior officials to the conference. UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt agreed at the last minute to attend but only to chair a meeting on pursuing peace in Yemen.

We are going to have the celebration sooner rather than later in Tehran and I want to be there with you

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's lawyer

But while the conference may ostensibly be devoted to achieving a broader settlement of the Middle East’s issues, neither Palestinians, Yemen’s Houthis, or any representative of the Iranian-led axis that includes Lebanese Hezbollah will attend. Russia has rejected the conference.

Many see the summit as an attempt to put an international imprimatur on a meeting that gathers foreign ministers of the Arabian peninsula’s anti-Iran alliance together with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has assumed the mantle of his country’s top diplomat.

Iranian officials and state television have dismissed the summit, describing it as a defeat because of the absence of junior level participation of many countries. Officials in Poland, which has long historic and trade ties to Iran and supports the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration, have rushed to assure Tehran that nothing inflammatory would emerge from the conference.

Tight security outside the Royal Castle in the old city of Warsaw ahead of the summit (Borzou Daragahi/The Independent)

Poland was taken by surprise by the way Mr Pompeo presented the conference,” said Ms Geranmayeh. “Tehran threw a tantrum but was pleased to see the agenda rolled back.”

Tehran summoned the Polish ambassador and cancelled a Polish film festival immediately after the conference was announced in January.

During a press appearance Tuesday night in Warsaw, Mr Pompeo and Poland’s foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz tiptoed around their differences: “Poland is a part of the EU and hence we are of the opinion and we accept the policy of JCPOA, the nuclear treaty with Iran,” said Mr Czaputowicz. “The US have a different opinion, but that doesn’t hinder us in looking for a common approach.”

But some worry that any fiery anti-Iranian rhetoric and the sight of Israeli, US, Arab, and European officials arrayed against them may only embolden Iran’s hardline security establishment.

“It’s devoid of substance; it’s just pulling the wool over the eyes of a bunch of teenagers watching on Twitter,” said Sanam Anderlini, founder of the International Civil Society Action Network, a peace advocacy group, and a former UN adviser. “What it does in Iran is legitimise the hardline position. It undermines those who are trying to bring about reform, change, or an opening.”