A proposal by the US for the United Nations to extend an arms embargo on Iran was decisively rejected by the security council comprised of five permanent members and 11 non-permanent members. Russia and China voted against the resolution while even American allies Britain and France abstained, along with nine others.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the rejection as “inexcusable”. Then the day after the defeat, President Trump expressed his chagrin by saying he would not be attending a summit proposed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Iran and Middle East security.
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media |
Moreover, Trump issued a threatening vow to push ahead with the US forcing the UN to reimpose sanctions on Iran.
“Well we knew what the vote [at the security council] was going to be but we’ll be doing a snapback, you’ll be watching it next week,” Trump reportedly said Saturday while taking a break from his weekend golfing.
The legal argument by the US side is tenuous at best, if not ridiculous. Washington claims it is still a participant in the 2015 international nuclear accord along with Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and Iran. That is in spite of the fact that the Trump administration pulled out of the accord in May 2018.
The US position amounts to wanting its cake and eating it. Washington doesn’t want to work the nuclear deal, having repudiated it as the “worst ever”, but at the same time, it wants to use provisions contained in the accord for snapping back sanctions on Iran. That snapback idea, as noted above, is impelled by the humiliating defeat the US suffered at the security council in not being able to extend an arms embargo on Iran.
Originally imposed by the UN on Iran in 2007, the embargo is due to expire in October as part of the nuclear accord, which was signed in July 2015 and endorsed by the UN security council. Washington wants to extend the arms restrictions on Iran even though Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal has earned it the right to have the embargo lifted.
Washington’s line of reasoning is illogical and rife with double standards. It is parallel-universe stuff. You know it is whenever super-hawk warmonger John Bolton admits there are no legal grounds for the US position.