The Iran administration’s Iran strategy will face a major test this week, as the United States calls for a vote at the United Nations on its resolution to extend an arms embargo against the Islamic Republic.
If the resolution fails – which experts say is the most likely scenario – the Trump administration has threatened to call in snapback sanctions, which proponents of the Iran nuclear deal feared the death of the deal.
The gambit also risks further alienating the United States from its allies, who continue to support the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal and have brought back the Trump administration’s so-called maximum pressure campaign against Tehran.
“The Trump administration knows that the arms embargo will not be renewed and, more than anything, this is a driver for them to try to snap back and destroy what is left of the JCPOA,” said Ilan Goldenberg, senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security.
At issue is a UN Security Council resolution passed in 2015 in support of the nuclear deal between Iran and various world powers that President Trump
Donald John TrumpDeWine tests negative for coronavirus a second time Several GOP lawmakers raise concerns over Trump executive orders in Beirut after testing test for US aid to frustrated ally MAY withdraws the United States back in 2018. Under the resolution, a ban on imports and exports of conventional weapons to and from Iran is lifted to 18 October.
This past week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Michael (Mike) Richard PompeoBeirut drags test for US aid to frustrating allies Advocacy groups come out against Trump elects ambassador to Germany US pledges million in disaster relief to Lebanon MORE said the Security Council would vote next week on the US resolution to extend the embargo.
“The proposal we are proposing is eminently reasonable,” Pompeo said in a press release. “Somehow we will do the right thing. We will ensure that the arms embargo is extended. ”
But Russia and China, which have veto power in the UN Security Council, have already rejected the US offer.
In the face of likely defeat, Pompeo has threatened another tactic: claiming that the United States remains a participant in the nuclear deal as defined by the Security Council resolution, despite Trump withdrawing from the agreement. By doing so, the United States could call for a snapback of all UN sanctions in favor of the nuclear deal, thereby extending the arms embargo.
“We are deeply aware that snapback is an option available to the United States, and we will do everything in our power in America to ensure that arms embargoes are extended,” Pompeo said. “I’m sure we’ll be successful.”
The United States would have to impose snapback sanctions by September 17 to keep them in place by the time the arms embargo expires.
In an additional ripple, the State Department’s top envoy of Iran, Brian Hook, announced his departure from the administration on Thursday. He will be replaced by Elliott Abrams, who has been Venezuela’s top envoy since 2019.
Over the past several months, Hook has traveled the world seeking to build support for the U.S. resolution to extend the arms embargo, with little apparent success. In a virtual appearance at the Aspen Security Forum, the day before his dismissal, Hook stressed support for expanding the embargo among Gulf nations and Israel, adding that “no one thinks that what is lacking in the Middle East are more Iranian weapons.”
Abrams, an Iranian hurdler, is perhaps best known for pleading guilty to withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra affair. He was later approached by President George HW Bush.
“The departure and replacement of Hook by Abrams – a hardline, veteran Middle East and Latin American hand – increases the risks surrounding the last months of Trump’s first term,” political risk adviser Eurasia Group said in a statement. a note to customers and the media this past week.
The company said earlier last month that the United States was calling for snapback sanctions “would increase overall tensions with Iran and introduce new uncertainty in the Iranian leadership’s calculations” and “could force Iran to take more risky action on the nuclear empire, or revenge for JCPOA snapback in Iraq as the region. ”
The arms embargo itself has bilingual support among U.S. lawmakers as well as support among the European allies of the United States.
But the Trump administration’s approach as it seeks international support for renewing the embargo has rallied the same allies.
“Other JCPOA signatories do not necessarily want the arms embargo lifted, but they consider Trump’s actions dishonest and are aimed at simply killing the JCPOA,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. .
A European diplomat pointed out that position to The Hill.
“In general, we would support the arms embargo, but we do not like some of the unilateral sanctions that the US is imposing on Iran,” the diplomat said.
In a phone call Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Jean-Michel MacronBeirut pursues US aid test for frustrated ally Lebanese police fire tear gas at protesters in the wake of France’s explosion to demand coronavirus tests for those entering the country from US MORE, Trump discussed “the importance of extending the UN arms embargo on Iran,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.
When Pompeo argued in a June speech for extending sanctions directly to the Security Council, representatives of Britain, France and Germany expressed concern about both the lifting of the embargo and the US threat of snapback sanctions. to call in.
“It is very unfortunate that the United States left the JCPOA and in doing so violated international law,” said German UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen at a June virtual meeting.
Whether the United States will repay sanctions to eventually kill the nuclear deal depends on how Iran responds, said Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
“Everything will depend on what the Iranian response will be, and it’s a little difficult to predict,” she said. “I still think they’ll just cry and scream that it’s illegal and that they still intend to go back to the deal as a future US administration does, especially if they have really strong support from the Russians and the Chinese. “
It is also possible, she said, that even if the Trump administration claims victory in re-imposing sanctions, other countries will ignore the sanctions, particularly Russia and China, which are the countries most affected. opportunities to sell Iran weapons.
“Other members of the Security Council will reject the status of the US for doing so, as the US announced that it was no longer a participant in the JCPOA, even though it now wants to propose otherwise for this purpose, “she said. “That it will be a colossal mess.”
A UN Security Council diplomat called for the possibility that member states would not re-impose sanctions, despite US efforts.
“They could try to get the UN to impose additional sanctions, as the snapback mechanism requires, but if member states do not want that, they would not impose those sanctions,” the diplomat told The Hill.
However, Goldenberg of the Center for a New American Security Security Council’s 2015 resolution is a “major piece of architecture that keeps the JCPOA alive.”
‘If you break it, you can just drop the whole deal. “Nobody really knows what will happen,” he said. “The position of the administration is that lifting the arms embargo is absolutely unacceptable. But their real position is, we want to break the JCPOA, and we think we can use that to do it. “
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