As far back as August 2020, Donald Trump wanted the sanctions the UN imposed on Iran for violating several Security Council resolutions and international treaties reimposed or "snapped back" after they were lifted in 2015 when Tehran signed the nuclear deal.
Let's get into our Wayback Machine and recall the situation that Barack Obama and the U.S. faced in 2015.
Obama was trying to get the Senate to vote affirmatively for the nuclear deal. Since it wasn't formally a treaty, the Senate didn't have to ratify it. But Obama needed the vote for political cover.
To get it, he promised the sun, the moon, and the stars. He first and foremost promised that if Iran violated the deal, the crushing sanctions that brought Iran to the table would snap back into place.
And finally, Iran has powerful incentives to keep its commitments. Before getting sanctions relief, Iran has to take significant, concrete steps like removing centrifuges and getting rid of its stockpile. If Iran violates the agreement over the next decade, all of the sanctions can snap back into place. We won’t need the support of other members of the U.N. Security Council; America can trigger snapback on our own. On the other hand, if Iran abides by the deal and its economy begins to reintegrate with the world, the incentive to avoid snapback will only grow.
The U.S. could not unilaterally reimpose sanctions on Iran and expect the rest of the world to follow suit. Donald Trump eventually did so, but the European nations continued to make multi-billion-dollar deals with Tehran.
The three European signatories to the deal — Britain, France, and Germany — have now agreed to snapback the sanctions and are giving Iran a 30-day ultimatum to agree to talk with the U.S. about dismantling their program or face economic disaster.
The decision on Thursday triggers a 30-day period after which Iran would once again face an array of international United Nations-backed economic, banking, weapons and trade sanctions that pummeled its economy before the 2015 deal was struck. Renewed sanctions would effectively deal a final death blow to the 2015 deal.
Iran started to revamp its nuclear program in 2019, one year after President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement. By this June, Iran had exceeded almost all the nuclear restrictions in the deal and amassed enough highly enriched uranium for around 10 nuclear weapons.
“The international community faces serious ongoing concerns regarding the lack of credible assurances that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful,” the European countries said in a letter triggering the snapback process, adding that there had been “significant non-performance of its commitments” by Iran under the deal.
“We therefore urge Iran to engage in constructive diplomacy to resolve the concerns associated with its nuclear program,” the letter said.
Iran is slowly being dragged kicking and screaming back to the negotiating table. This should raise red flags for all interested parties. Iran is going to stall and delay negotiations, hoping to run out the clock until a new, more Iran-friendly American president is elected.
Iran wants some sanctions lifted immediately as a sign of good faith. That's not going to happen with Trump. It also wants a guarantee that its nuclear sites will not be attacked again. This, too, is a non-starter.
Iran has already indicated it will not give up its nuclear enrichment program, which is a key demand of the West. It has also threatened to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Pact (NPT) — a silly threat since it's already in violation of the NPT several times over.
Iran has long warned that it would respond harshly to the return of international sanctions. Among its threats is to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the decades-old agreement that seeks to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
On Thursday, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and nuclear negotiator, Kazem Gharibabadi, said that the triggering of the sanctions snapback would halt Iran’s discussions with the U.N. atomic agency about international inspections of the country’s nuclear sites.
Iran claims the European countries breached the terms of the 2015 deal and aren’t therefore in a legal position to reimpose sanctions. Russia and China have backed Iran’s stance.
The snapback of sanctions would prevent Russia and China from vetoing any Security Council Resolution on the sanctions. But both nations are working on an alternate resolution that would delay the sanctions for six months. It's not going to pass.
"Snapback would make conventional-weapons sales and the sale of ballistic missiles and parts against international law and outlaw most of Iran’s nuclear activities," reports the Journal. Iran's oil production continues to fall, and the "official" inflation rate is running at 38.7%. The rate is actually much higher, given the vast black market that the Revolutionary Guards, the clerical leadership, and other elites who are profiting from the people's misery are running.
Declaring the sanctions snapback is only the first step. It will be up to Trump to hold the Europeans to the fire and force them to follow through completely as they promised to do in 2015 and reimpose the sanctions that brought Iran to the table.
