The EU has always had the power to tip the scales in favor of Iran and Palestine - will they do it? That sounds like a revolution, and the repression of the Yellow Vests shows that the EU's diplomatic and philosophical tone-setter is decidedly reactionary.
Furthermore, there is a delusion among the non-US parts of the West: they mistakenly believe that they do not profit from an imperialism which they falsely perceive as being entirely waged by only Washington. We can call this the "Canada delusion" - their citizens are among the most jingoistic in the world yet they justify inherently reactionary stances by saying, "But it's not like we are the US". Macron's attempt to play "good cop" to the "bad cop" in Washington is nothing new - it is "audacious" only to his spokespeople, who are concerned with superficialities and not unjust Iranian suffering.
However, at least Washington correctly grasps that the Iranian Revolution poses a huge threat to their comfortable existence. Should true, independent Muslim Democracy ever take root anywhere besides Iran the financial costs to the West would be enormous: No more super low-cost uranium for French power plants from Mali, no more depressed oil prices, no more compliant puppets in Egypt and all the Arab monarchies. Iran is a threat because it is democratic, genuine and modern - these are all things the West has fought to prevent in the Muslim world for two centuries.
However, this modern analysis is beyond the ability of the neoliberals in Brussels - they only see Iran as an untapped market they can despoil; they want reconciliation economically and politically because they only see short-term profits and not their long-term neo-imperial culpability. What the EU claims as their motivation for their Iran efforts - that they are desperate to ensure that Iran does not gain a nuclear weapon - is so absurd that it cannot be believed, which gives more credibility to this anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist analysis. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, and he is not about to risk fatally undermining this Islamic practice by all of a sudden rushing for a bomb. The idea of the binding importance of upholding Islamic mores is, of course, never taken seriously among Western so-called political analysts, nor is it even treated objectively in Western media despite its importance.
But the reality remains the US will never accept Iran for two reasons: Firstly, the US political structure is dominated by lobbies and not votes, morality or national interests, and the pro-Zionist lobby has a stranglehold on any issue regarding the Middle East and Muslim world. As long as Iran refuses to accept the destruction of Palestine this lobby will push American soldiers to destroy Iran. Secondly, the Iranian economy is - in a patriotic, leftist and decidedly anti-neoliberal fashion - totally opposed to any foreign domination/globalisation. Until Iran "sells out" its oil companies and industries, the capitalist-imperialist dogma which hysterically motivates Americans from the Pentagon to Wall Street to even Main Street demands that Iran be treated as a threat to American existence.
The opposition of some Principlists, demonised as "hard-liners" to the West, is not really to talks with the US but to the idea that the too much talking could lead to backsliding and then concessions on these principles of the modern Iranian nation. Many Reformists share the same concern.
Zarif did what diplomats are supposed to do: talk to enemies during wartime to probe the depth of their deranged commitment to the murder of the Iranian people.
Unlike the West, Iran is not ruled by 18th century bourgeois principles, therefore top diplomats, kings and presidents do not unilaterally decide major policy shifts. The balances of Iranian democracy, its revolutionary post of a Supreme Leader who must be far-sighted and patriotic, and a citizenry which is undoubtedly willing to prioritise anti-imperialist, internationalist values (such as the welfare of Sunni, Arab Palestinians) instead of the self-interest promoted by Western individualism all combine to ensure that detente with Washington and Tel Aviv will not be one-sided nor a betrayal of modern Iranian sacrifices.
Talks in weeks would be nice" but such a pleasing daydream was motivated solely by French self-interest.
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