Experts see Warsaw meeting as 'pointless'
WASHINGTON - The United States will co-host with Poland a meeting on peace and security in the Middle East in the Polish capital Warsaw on Feb 13-14, according to a joint statement by the two countries.
Analysts argued that both countries have their own axes to grind. Washington seeks to rally international support at the meeting to isolate Teheran, while Warsaw craves closer ties with Washington and a higher position in world affairs.
With the absence of some major stakeholders and all-around skepticism, the meeting is unlikely to see substantive progress on a lot of issues.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in January that the meeting "includes an important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence".
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the planned meeting as an "anti-Iranian circus event".
The objective of US government was to rally international support at the conference to isolate Iran diplomatically and economically, said Ahmad Majidyar, a senior fellow and director of the IranObserved Project at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
Yet many US allies in Europe are unwilling to participate in the event, said Majidyar.
In an opinion piece, Roula Khalaf, deputy editor of the Financial Times and an expert on Middle East issues, wrote that this meeting intends to create an anti-Iran coalition which consolidates the impression that the world has lined up behind US President Donald Trump's hardline approach to Iran.
"It is not the most outrageous foreign policy idea peddled by the Trump administration. But, in the raft of schemes rolling out from Washington, it is probably the most pointless," Khalaf said.
At best, the conference will be a waste of time for all participants; at worst, it will be a provocation that drives Iran to rethink its commitment to the nuclear deal, said Khalaf.
The upcoming Warsaw conference "has all the makings of a show about nothing", said Aaron David Miller, vice president for new initiatives at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
Xinhua
(China Daily 02/14/2019 page11)
