A decade-standing U.N. arms embargo on Iran has ended in line with Iran’s nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. But the United States insists that the embargo remains in effect. The arms embargo ends as part of Resolution 2231 of a landmark nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers that gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
As a symbolic victory, Iran hailed the ending of the ban as a momentous day for the international community but Secretary of States Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. is prepared to use its domestic authorities to sanction any individual or entity that materially contributes to the supply, sale, or transfer of conventional arms to or from Iran.
In August, the UN Security Council voted down and blocked a bid by the United States to reimpose sanctions on Iran. The U.S. stated that Iran is not complying with the 2015 nuclear deal that prohibited Iran from building a nuclear weapon. The deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, removed sanctions on Tehran in exchange for its compliance on the nuclear issue. The agreement includes a mechanism whereby parties to the deal can trigger “snapback” sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic violates the deal.
Following the failure of the resolution, the U.S. moved to trigger “snapback” sanctions on the country unilaterally. European Parties as well as Russia and China along with Iran, as the signatories of the agreement, said that the United States is not allowed to trigger the “ snapback” or return of all international sanctions on Iran lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal because it unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA on May 8 2018.
Thirteen council members expressed their opposition to Washington’s move. Indonesia’s U.N. Ambassador Dian Djani, the president of the UN Security Council, for August, said that it was “not in the position to take further action” on a U.S. bid to trigger a return of all UN sanctions on Iran because there is no consensus in the 15-member body.
The UN Security Council vote on Iran shows why diplomacy matters. The U.S. was just accompanied by the Dominican Republic. This was unprecedented that the E3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and right others (non-permanent members of the Security Council), abstained. This indicates that Trump administration’s foreign policy toward the Middle East has failed.
One can assume that the Iran deal is a European, Russian and Chinese success story of “effective multilateralism” and represents an excellent and stark sample of multilateral diplomacy within international relations. It was the most intrusive mechanism to ensure the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons that the world has ever achieved and after this diplomatic achievement, some talked about resolving the North Korea crisis through the Iran deal. By withdrawing from such an important international agreement and violating Security Council Resolution 2231, the United States once again proved to be an untrustworthy and unreliable negotiating party.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a detailed 159-page agreement with five annexes reached by Iran and the P5+1 that was endorsed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 and adopted on July 20, 2015, it was a resolution drafted and proposed by the U.S. itself and adopted unanimously by the Security Council.
Arguably, Trump’s “America First” foreign policy approach can be seen as a rejection to globalism, multilateralism and international law. The Trump administration has withdrawn from some international agreements and organisations (including the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Human Rights Council, Iran nuclear deal or JCPOA, Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the Trans-Pacific Partnership) and has rejected participation on the international stage. The USA administration even delivered its intent to withdraw from the World Health Organisation in July 2021. Trump has disparaged NATO allies and questioned the alliance’s core commitment to mutual self-defence. All this indicates that the United States has disengaged from the United Nations.
At the regional level, the US-Iran conflict has escalated since the Trump administration imposed intense pressure including economic sanctions on Tehran. Trump foreign policy toward Iran lacks coherent objectives and there is not a strategy for achieving them. It seems that Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran has failed. As “Stephan Walt”, an American professor of international relations at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government argues the Trump administration’s approach to Iran is brain-dead and appears devoid of strategic logic or purpose.
By the same token, on October 20, the United States rejected Russia’s proposal at the United Nations for a new security mechanism in the Persian Gulf. Russia’s foreign minister called for collective effort Tuesday (October 20) to prevent a large-scale war in the Persian Gulf and got strong support from all Security Council members to expect the United States, which called Iran the major culprit.
Tehran: Photo by Alireza Heydarifard on Unsplash
Accordingly, the United States’ foreign policy toward the Middle East and Trump’s unilateralism endangers regional and international security. Trump’s “America First” and “peace through strength” approach in international relations shows that the United States views the international community as self-help system and prefers unilateralism on international cooperation to handle regional and international challenges. Last but not least, Trump’s administration has been criticised for its “America First” approach to vaccine development for the Covid-19. All these examples, particularly Trump’s withdrawal from Iran’s nuclear deal shows how multilateral diplomacy would be challenged by the U.S. unilateralism.
Mehdi Ghavideldostkohi is an affiliated researcher at the center for Middle Eastern Studies in Lund university.