Europe will try to keep the Iran deal alive. It can't.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/europe-will-try-keep-iran-deal-alive-cant-152504350.html

In a statement issued by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Theresa May, the European leaders expressed regret over Trump’s action, stated that “This agreement remains important for our shared security,” and pledged their continued commitment to it. Meanwhile, even while Bolton was announcing new sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani insisted that his government is also still committed to the nuclear deal. “If in the short term, we conclude we can achieve what we want” from the agreement, it will survive, he said in a televised address.

To understand why the Trump administration’s unilateral action could scuttle a multilateral agreement negotiated by all the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia), plus Germany, it’s important to recall why the economic sanctions placed on Iran proved so effective in the first place. As part of the post-9/11 war on terror, Treasury Department officials discovered that U.S. sanctions targeting terrorists and weapons proliferators created such risks for international banks and lenders that depended on dollars for transactions that they voluntarily refused to do business with targeted entities. Iran was essentially denied access to the international banking and global financing systems.