So can Europe save the Iran deal?

Politicians and policymakers from Brussels to London to Berlin want to, but it won’t be easy. Europe is boxed in. Over the past year, the Trump administration has reinstituted sanctions that had been lifted under the agreement and imposed new ones. If the Europeans defy those sanctions, they face the wrath of the world’s largest economy and could lose access to American markets. But if they stop doing business with Iran, Tehran will lose any incentive to stay in the agreement — an agreement that Europe views as vital to its interests.

But there might be a way out. Mr. Rouhani’s statement on Wednesday made clear that he doesn’t expect Europe to cure all of his country’s economic woes. Instead, he specifically noted that he wants the Europeans to “return to the negotiating table” and devise a clear path for continuing the deal without the Americans. Although Mr. Rouhani wasn’t specific, he said that he’d be looking for negotiations rather than any particular absolute outcome by the 60-day deadline.

This means that Europe could take small but symbolically important steps to signal to the Iranians that it is committed to maintaining the nuclear deal. Iran is specifically looking for help from Europe in overcoming the restrictions the United States has placed on Iranian banking and getting Iran’s oil back on the international market.

So what can Europe do? First, it could finally make operational a new financial mechanism that is supposed to allow European companies to send exports to Iran without running afoul of American sanctions. Although the scope of the mechanism is likely to be limited at first, focusing mostly on humanitarian goods such as food and medicine, its creation would extend an important economic lifeline to Iran and indicate a willingness to cooperate. The arrival of such goods would also demonstrate to the Iranian public that the West isn’t intent on simply pressuring it without an end in sight.