Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East, the conference duly taking place on February 13-14 in Warsaw, capital of Poland. 

Though the United States invested tremendous diplomatic resources in getting the conference up and running, it may well still prove to be a failure of American diplomacy.

According to on-site reports, it was intended to invite more than 70 countries to the conference held jointly by the U.S. and Poland, although only about 60 turned up.

Pompeo himself emphasized that fighting against extremism, restricting missile programs and countering nuclear proliferation would be major topics for discussion and the United States sent a high-level delegation consisting of Vice President Mike Pence, Senior Presidential adviser Jared Kushner and the Secretary of State Pompeo.

Though the U.S. did not mention an intention of using the event to target Iran, everybody clearly saw it as an American containment tactic. Although dubbed a "Middle East" conference, Iran was not invited to attend, which seems a mistake limiting the meeting's ability to achieve results. 

Iran is certainly a very important player in the region not only in population terms, but also by the size of its territory and regional influence. And the topics listed by Pompeo were all related to Iran in one form or another. 

From an American perspective, Iran is the number one State-sponsor of international terrorism, it has programs for developing nuclear weapons and their delivery system (missiles). Meanwhile, the countries most enthusiastic about the conference were those obviously hostile to Iran. 

As a result, despite all the careful arrangements, the conference was doomed to fail, being unable to achieve such goals as politically isolating Iran and economically punishing it. In fact, the event clearly indicated the isolation of the U.S. rather than Iran. 

Firstly, no major European government officials were there. High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini was absent, claiming conflicting agendas. France and Germany did not send their foreign ministers. 

As a result, although designed to function at a ministerial level, those who attended the conference were mainly ranked at a lower level.

European countries do share American concerns about Iran's role in the region, having publicly expressed concerns about the country's expansion in Syria and in other Arab countries in recent years. Likewise, they are also worried about Iran's missile program since parts of Europe are within the range of its known missile types. 

However, the European Union remains significantly distant from the U.S. on the best way to deal with Iran-related issues. 

While the U.S. is pushing for a program of isolating and sanctioning Iran, the EU favors talking with Iran and respecting its interest in playing a significant role in regional affairs. 

The EU is particularly dissatisfied with the 2018 American withdrawal from the JCPOA, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. Europeans regard the deal as a major diplomatic achievement, and its prestige and ability to deliver greater regional security is seriously undermined by the U.S. withdrawal. European economic interests have also been seriously hurt after the America re-imposed economic and trade sanctions on Iran that had been lifted after the deal was signed in July 2015. 

The differences even resulted in direct confrontation. Last month, the EU formally established the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) as a means of carrying out trade with Iran bypassing American financial sanctions. This move was fiercely criticized by Vice President Mike Pence at the Warsaw conference.

Secondly, no other major global actor was willing to respond to the American initiative, and, certainly, the Warsaw meeting exposed serious differences between the U.S. and the wider international community. 

Though the U.S. wanted to build the broadest possible international alliance against Iran, it failed dismally. It was not only the major EU powers like France and Germany, but also Russia and China, who showed little or no interest in getting involved. 

The British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was only in the conference briefly. In other words, besides the U.S., none of the permanent members of U.N. Security Council took the American initiative seriously. 

This certainly seems to suggest that the Warsaw conference had much to do with the isolation of the United States on the Iran issue.

Thirdly, quite a number of Middle East countries kept their distance from the U.S. States like Israel and Saudi Arabia were enthusiastic, and they might also have been the forces pushing for the conference behind the scenes. 

However, some other Middle East countries did not show much interest. They might have sent delegations to Warsaw without being in anyway interested in joining the U.S. in concerted action against Iran. 

Countries such as Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey all have a close interest in ensuring normal relations with Tehran. Some other regional states even refused any participation, such as Lebanon.

The conference will have very limited effect in punishing Iran economically. The reasons are simple. The countries participating in the conference are not the ones that have strong economic ties with Tehran. Or to put it another way, those having strong economic ties with Iran were not at the conference.

Therefore, it is very clear, there is a big gap between the international community in general and the U.S. on Iran. U.S. efforts to unilaterally impose its own agenda in this regard is doomed to fail, which also seriously undermines America's image in the world.

In some way, the failure of the Warsaw conference also suggests the declining role of the U.S. since it can no longer rally an international consensus as it did in the Madrid Middle East conference of 1991.

Dr. Jin Liangxiang is Senior Research Fellow with the Center for West Asian and African Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/jinliangxiang.htm

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