An anonymous diplomatic source in Brussels has revealed to RIA Novosti that the European Union intends to discontinue paying for Iranian oil in US dollars. This is a major development which confirms a series of articles in global media which reveal the growing positive developments indicating that Atlanticism is in a serious crisis. It has cracked. Analyses by CSS and FRN’s own experts going back a number of years have forecasted that these events would eventuate.

This comes on the heels of the “Euro-troika” of France, Germany, and the UK agreeing with Iran to develop a support program and strengthen economic ties in response to the US’ withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal proclaimed by Trump on May 8th.

To recall, the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan, which was concluded with Iran by six international mediators – Russia, the US, UK, China, France, and Germany – meant the lifting of economic sanctions in exchange for Tehran limiting its uranium-enrichment operations and eliminating or regulating related resources. The agreement was strictly voluntary and multipolar.

If RIA Novosti’s source is correct, then this means that the EU will uphold the agreement in no small part by discarding the dollar in transactions with Iran for oil, gas, and derivative products, aviation, naval, and land transport contracts, and export credits. According to the source, the practical dimensions of this plan are to be decided in the coming weeks.

This news also comes right before the EU’s Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action Miguel Arias Cañete’s visit to Iran planned for May 19th-20th.

What’s more, if Trump follows through with his proclamations, then new American sanctions will not only hit Iran, but also countries doing business with Iran.

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In other words, the EU could be subject to American sanctions for refusing to blindly follow the US’ sudden withdrawal from a meticulously deliberated international treaty. This is yet another testimony to the fact that Iran is a linchpin in global geopolitics whose treatment is a formidable thorn in European-American relations. Hence also, not coincidentally, the importance of the evolving Russian-Iranian alliance.

Fort Russ News’ Editor-in-Chief, Joaquin Flores, suggested in an interview back in 2015 that the “pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear program was going to be a never-ending issue that was meant to ultimately overthrow Iran.”

In Flores’ words, the “essence of the deal was about the West saving face.” The dispute over and consequences of the US’ newly announced withdrawal from the agreement is not only disintegrating this temporarily “saved face”, but is accelerating the breakdown of the “West” as the US+EU and the “multipolarizing” of different states and blocs’ approaches, manifested in this development as the EU breaking with the US’ lead and pursuing its own constructive policy, which in turn necessitates cooperation with states which the US has sought to de-legitimize or demonize, such as Russia, Iran, and China. Seeing as how the Israel has been the main lobbyist of war against Iran, the EU’s turn towards an independent policy vis-a-vis Iran could also entail serious implications to EU-Israel relations.

On May 10th, Iranian Brigadier General Hossein Salami stoked this sensitive situation by claiming outright that Europe is incapable of acting independently on the issue of the nuclear agreement. On the same day, European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker said that Europe must replace the United States as the “global leader” over Trump’s decision to abandon the nuclear deal.

Thus, in the bigger picture, the dispute over the Iran nuclear deal is an index of fledgling multipolarity and a rift in US-EU relations. It is a touchstone of the ability of the European Union to pursue policies independently of the US and cooperate with such states as Russia, Iran, and China which have been consistently developing frameworks for and working towards the evolution of a multipolar international architecture. The abandonment of the US dollar in European transactions with Iran would be a major spur in this direction, and just might put the EU and the US on opposite sides of the geopolitical barricades.