The United States will unilaterally claim this weekend that United Nations sanctions against Iran are back in force, a move that risks increasing their isolation but also international tensions.
“All UN sanctions against Iran will be in effect again this weekend, at 8:00 p.m. Saturday,” that is to say at 00:00 GMT Sunday, said US envoy Elliott Abrams.
But here it is, Washington is almost alone and against everyone: the other great powers, Russia, China, but also the European allies of the Americans, dispute this assertion.
How did we come to this spectacular face-to-face between the world’s leading power and the rest of the planet? To understand it, we have to go back a month.
In mid-August, Donald Trump’s US government suffered a resounding setback at the UN Security Council in its attempt to extend the embargo on conventional arms targeting Tehran, which expires in October.
Accusing in an attack of rare violence France, the United Kingdom and Germany of having “chosen to align with the ayatollahs” in power in the Islamic Republic, the head of the American diplomacy Mike Pompeo triggers the August 20, a controversial procedure, nicknamed “snapback” and supposed to make it possible to restore all UN sanctions against Iran a month later.
These sanctions were lifted in 2015, when Tehran pledged, in an international agreement, not to acquire nuclear weapons.
Legal pirouette
However, President Trump, deeming this text negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama insufficient, withdrew from it in 2018 the United States, which in the process re-established or even tightened its own bilateral sanctions.
Now, in a legal twist, the United States is invoking its status as a country “participating” in this agreement which it has left with a crash, with the sole aim of activating the “snapback”.
Washington’s ability to avail itself of this status is contested by almost all of the other member countries of the Security Council, which has therefore not followed up on its approach.
But the dialogue of the deaf continues: the Trump administration intends to act as if international sanctions were back, while the other powers intend to act as if nothing had happened.
So, is this a symbolic gesture to recall the American hard line against Tehran or should we expect more concrete measures?
The Americans will “claim that they have activated the snapback and therefore that the sanctions are back in place”, but “this action has no legal basis” and therefore can “not have any legal consequences”, says a diplomatic source European.
“Nothing will happen,” also predicts a diplomat at the UN. “It’s like when you pull the trigger and the ball doesn’t go. “
Trump’s “surprise”?
Another deplores a “one-sided” act: “Russia and China are watching, while eating popcorn, the Europeans and the Americans dividing”.
However, American diplomacy insists that the arms embargo will be extended “indefinitely” and that many activities linked to Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic programs will henceforth be punishable at the international level.
And that the United States will “do whatever is necessary to ensure that these sanctions are applied and respected”.
“We are going to prevent Iran from acquiring Chinese tanks and Russian air defense systems,” Mike Pompeo warned. “We expect every nation to comply with Security Council resolutions. “
This is where this issue risks creating new tensions.
Because Donald Trump could announce so-called secondary sanctions to punish any country or entity that violates UN sanctions, by blocking their access to the market and to the American financial system, even though he will be one of the only world leaders to consider that they are in force.
Six weeks away from running for a second term, the US president might also want to “create a surprise x during his speech on Tuesday to the UN General Assembly” by announcing a financial punishment “against the planetary institution to mark” his discontent, ”fears Richard Gowan of the conflict prevention organization International Crisis Group.