US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has confirmed that he will travel to New York’s headquarters in New York on Thursday to formally trigger a so-called snapback clause that would force the Security Council to reinstate sanctions against Iran over the years. for a 2015 agreement were forced to force Tehran to limit its nuclear weapons program.
“These will be fully valid, enforced UN Security Council resolutions,” Pompeo said Wednesday. “We have every expectation that they will be maintained.”
The US push for sanctions has put Europe, which is meant to keep the Iran nuclear deal alive and opposition to the US movement, in an awkward position. Not only does it place the European forces on the Security Council (France, the United Kingdom and Germany, which currently has a non-permanent seat) in the same camp as Russia and China, both of which oppose the position of US move, it also creates the appearance the trio supports Iran over Washington, Europe’s most important ally.
In 2018, the Trump administration, claiming that Iran could not be trusted, abandoned the nuclear deal, originally agreed between Tehran and six world powers in 2015 during Barack Obama’s presidency. Since then, Europe has been trying to fly the deal, even in the face of Iranian transgressions.
In a preliminary round of this week’s drama, Europe last week recalled a US Security Council vote on the imposition of an arms embargo on Iran in October. But there is no hiding place for the snapback maneuver; both European powers will agree to enforce the sanctions, as set out in the resolution underlying Iran’s nuclear deal, or they will not.
“It could be very annoying,” said Cornelius Adebahr, a German foreign policy analyst who wrote a book on Iran’s nuclear deal. “Europeans really do not know what to do.”
The standoff comes just days after EU countries surprised the US for failing to comply with international standards by threatening to impose “extraterritorial” sanctions on companies and individuals linked to the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline that Russia and Germany connect, which the US is trying to block. But the snapback would put the shoe on the other foot: If Europeans do not comply, they could be seen as damaging an international agreement.
European diplomats say their greater concern is what non-compliance on their part would mean for the future of the UN itself, just weeks before the organization celebrates its 75th anniversary. If members of the Security Council refuse to honor resolutions that they themselves have adopted, such as the one covering the Iranian snapback facility, the legitimacy of the UN would be severely curtailed.
But even if the Europeans follow the lead of the US, diplomats say, the UN would be shaken forward because Russia and China, feeling betrayed by the US, would be unlikely to sign for an agreement like the Iran -deal again.
The Europeans say that even if the US has the legal right to trigger a snapback (which they deny), Washington would be violating the spirit of the original agreement, because the clause is designed to punish Iran only if it flagrant violation of the nuclear agreement. Iran is currently in breach of the agreement by enriching uranium outside permitted limits, but Europeans argue that this is only because the US has withdrawn from the deal.
Despite the US decision to pull out, the Trump administration claims it still has a legal right to exercise the snapback because the US is mentioned in the resolution codifying the deal, which it has never changed. The Europeans dispute the legal arguments of the US, but there is no court or other body that has the power to decide the case. Ultimately, the question of whether to follow the US comes down to a political decision on the part of individual members of the Security Council.
Even John Bolton, the former adviser to the National Security Council and former US ambassador to the UN, warned the administration that it was playing with fire.
“It’s too half to say that we’re in the nuclear deal for goals we want, but not for those we do not,” wrote Bolton, a leading critic of both the Iran deal as the UN, in the Wall Street Journal this week.
Bolton, the author of a recent tell-all book about the Trump administration, argues that if Washington moves forward, it risks triggering a chain that ultimately undermines the U.S. veto power in the Security Council. can endanger, a tool she has often relied on to block resolutions that do the opposite about Israel and other issues.
“For the US, there is one point of high principle worth dying in a ditch for at the UN: Never limit the Security Council’s veto,” he wrote.
But supporters of the administration’s course say Europe should look beyond its aversion to Trump and acknowledge what even many EU countries recognize as the evil character of the Iranian regime.
“It is clear that Europeans do not want to be seen as winning a Trump on this issue,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an analyst on Iran with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based tank. “It’s a question of style and substance.”
For now, the European strategy is to play time. If Pompeo triggers the snapback, they will likely look for ways to delay a final decision until after the November 3 presidential election in the hope that Joe Biden will reverse Trump’s course.
If Trump wins, however, Europe would be back on square.
“What could the Europeans do?” Ask Adebahr. “I’m not sure.”
