The United States failed to convince even its European allies of the need to extend the ban on arms sales to Iran. Therefore, they began to openly blackmail them, and with them the entire UN Security Council.
“Yes, I understand that it is not very popular today,” says Kelly Craft, the US spokeswoman for the UN. And she is still being modest: Washington is now perceived in the Security Council as an outright hooligan, arsonist and even a terrorist. This is because the States openly, without hiding, blackmail the United Nations, demanding to fulfill their illegal wish and otherwise threatening to abuse the right, which they themselves refused.
The fact is that on October 18, the UN Security Council's embargo on arms supplies to Iran expires - and the United States really wants this embargo to be extended. Not only to prevent Iran from buying the latest Russian or Chinese weapons (after Europe caved in under American demands and unilaterally tore up a number of contracts for the supply of important equipment to Iran, it is unlikely to dare to conclude with the French, Italians or even the Germans weapons contracts).
Yes, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pushing this point. According to him, lifting the embargo will allow Russia and China to sell weapons to Iran, and then to Iran itself, then send these weapons around the world. However, everyone understands that Tehran (which is in a deep financial crisis) does not have the funds for massive arms purchases. The Americans need to maintain the embargo primarily in order to maintain the isolation of Iran.
Unfortunately for Washington, isolation requires collective action. Yes, a number of countries support the US position, but these are mostly either those who depend on the Americans, or those who have personal accounts with Tehran. “Iran is smuggling weapons to paramilitaries that threaten regional peace,” said Abdel Aziz al-Wasel, the UN representative for Saudi Arabia. A country bombing cities in Yemen, a country accused of sponsoring terrorists in Yemen, for example, and supporting paramilitaries in Syria.
Riyadh's allies in the Persian Gulf, whose goal is to contain the Islamic republic, are also in favor of extending the arms embargo. Supports the extension of the embargo and Israel, for which Iran is an existential enemy. Arabs and Israelis took a united position. The Security Council must listen to them, says US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
However, the overwhelming majority of the members of the Security Council have a completely different position. Even though the Americans abandoned the nuclear deal and imposed a number of sanctions against Iran, Tehran voluntarily fulfills most of the terms of the deal. If the embargo is extended, it could be the last straw for the Iranian leadership - proof that their goodwill was not appreciated by the West. President of the Islamic Republic Hassan Rouhani promised Iran's "crushing response" in the event of an extension of the embargo: it could be not only a complete breakdown of the nuclear deal by Iran, but also withdrawal from the NPT.
Among the opponents of the renewal of the embargo were also European countries: France, Great Britain, as well as Germany (which now takes the place of one of the non-permanent members of the Security Council). Yes, according to their long-standing tradition, they tried to find some kind of compromise with Washington. Some propose to extend the embargo for some time, while others consider it necessary to lift it only partially (keeping the ban on the export to Iran of only a number of overly dangerous types of weapons, for example, anti-ship missiles).
Yes, the European comrades understood that any resolution on the extension of the sanctions would not pass the Security Council. It will be blocked by Russia and China, since everyone is well aware of the illegality and inadequacy of American claims about the dangers of buying weapons by Iranians.
As Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rightly notes, "The United States has long spent the most on defense spending, is the largest arms seller, initiator and provocateur of wars, and their biggest beneficiary." While trying to get the Americans to sit at the negotiating table, the Europeans wanted to preserve some image of Western unity and calm the United States. To convince them of further destructive steps.
And the Americans have already outlined these steps. Washington understands that the resolution on the extension of sanctions proposed by it the other day in the Security Council will be rejected, and in plain text warns: if its (or any other) resolution on the extension of the embargo is not adopted, it will maintain the embargo in another way.
And it would be okay to talk only about the fact that the United States intends to unilaterally impose sanctions against countries that will sell weapons to Iran after the embargo is lifted. This is deeply immoral (given the fact that the United States under Trump withdrew from the UN International Arms Trade Treaty, which outlines the norms of this business and introduces at least some concepts of morality into it), but we are all used to such actions of the American administration.
Donald Trump, of course, will not abandon such sanctions, but at the same time he wants to cheat and restore the embargo through the provisions of the Obama-signed nuclear deal with Iran. The fact is that, according to the text of the deal, if any of the parties - the same America - considers that Iran is not fulfilling its obligations, it can bring the issue to the consideration of the other participating countries. Further, there are various formats of agreements, but if the Americans take a principled position and simply reject any options for a compromise, then after several months of various considerations the issue will be submitted to the UN Security Council to adopt a new compromise resolution. And if it is not adopted within a month, then all old Security Council resolutions on Iran, including the arms embargo, are automatically restored. Therefore, the Americans are actually blackmailing the Security Council (not Iran, Russia and China, but the entire Security Council), making it clear that either the embargo will be extended, or Washington will launch a mechanism to restore sanctions at the UN.
In fact, the United States has no right to trigger an automatic renewal of sanctions at the UN since it pulled out of the nuclear deal. In fact, the European troika itself is located there, and none of its representatives wants to launch the sanctions mechanism. However, from a formal point of view, they still have, because after they were published in Security Council resolution 2231 (describing the nuclear deal and legitimizing it within the framework of UN institutions), the corresponding amendments were not made and, according to its text, the United States has all the rights of a party to the transaction, including including in the issue of claims against Iran for non-compliance with the terms of the deal.
The very vote on the American resolution has already taken place. At the time of submitting the article, its results were not yet known, but it failed by 99.9%. And now the United States can either launch the process of returning sanctions through a deal, or demand from the European allies to accept and promote a different version of the resolution through the Security Council. “I'm running out of patience,” threatens Kelly Craft.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.