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Europeans Welcome Trump's Olive Branch and Warning with Sigh of Relief

Jamie Dettmer

   The foreign ministers of Europe's four leading powers met in Brussels
   Tuesday to try to find a way to ease growing tensions in the Middle
   East just hours before Iranian missiles struck two military bases
   housing U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.

   As Washington and Tehran continued to trade barbs in the wake of the
   U.S. slaying of Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani, Britain's foreign
   secretary, Dominic Raab, told reporters, "What we are looking to do is
   is to de-escalate tensions with Iran." But when Raab and his colleagues
   exited their meeting, they weren't any clearer about what steps to take
   to defuse the most dangerous confrontation between the U.S. and Iran in
   four decades.

   On Friday, foreign ministers from all 28 European Union countries will
   gather in the Belgian capital to thrash out a common strategy, but with
   a little more hope than before -- the televised remarks by U.S.
   President Donald Trump Wednesday have offered the chance, they say,
   that confrontation between the U.S. and Iran can be defused and an
   all-out war averted.

   They just hope Iran will grasp the opportunity and refrain from any
   more military action.

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