U.S. Resolution on Iran Arms Embargo Fails in UN Security Council

Aug. 14, 2020 (EIRNS)—The draft U.S. resolution to continue the UN arms embargo on Iran failed to pass in the UN Security Council today. Eleven members abstained, including Germany, France, and Britain—the last two permanent members with veto power—while Washington and the Dominican Republic were the only yes votes.

Before the vote, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft vowed that the U.S. “will use the most important tool, whatever it is, whether it’s ‘snap back,’ whether it is hopefully just going into the council and extending this renewal, we will not take no for an answer.” She said the U.S. had circulated to council members a six-page memo from the U.S. State Department legal advisers outlining why the United States remains part of the 2015 Security Council resolution and still has the right to use the “snap back” provision.

Craft said council members face a choice between “sponsoring terrorism” or promoting international peace and security. “We have a moral responsibility to make certain that this murderous regime does not have access any longer to exporting and to arming its proxies,” Craft said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said today that it was “nuts” to allow Iran to buy and sell weapons at will.

After the vote, “Caesar” Pompeo issued a statement from on high:

“The United Nations Security Council is charged with the responsibility of maintaining international peace and security. It failed today to uphold its fundamental mission set. It rejected a reasonable resolution to extend the 13-year-old arms embargo on Iran and paved the way for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell conventional weapons without specific UN restrictions in place for the first time in over a decade. The Security Council’s failure to act decisively in defense of international peace and security is inexcusable.”

Before the vote, Iran’s permanent mission to the UN called on the Security Council to “stand against” the “illegal and unhealthy” U.S. effort to maintain the arms embargo, in a statement issued yesterday. “The U.S.-proposed draft resolution targets the integrity, authority, and credibility of the Security Council and the United Nations, and multilateralism, the rule of law and diplomacy,” the statement said, reported Tasnim. It is the destructive behaviors of the U.S., the statement said, which “are the main sources of instability, insecurity and human suffering in the region.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, said the U.S. has no right to invoke the snap back of UN sanctions because it withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal more than two years ago.

“We expect that whether at the International Atomic Energy Agency or the Board of Governors and at the UN Security Council, there will be close consultation and cooperation between Iran and the three European countries [Germany, France and Britain], Russia and China to prevent the opponents of the JCPOA from achieving their goals,”

reported Tasnim News.

In turn, the French President said, “Our views on the extension of the arms embargo on Iran are quite different from those of the United States, and we have made this clear to them.” He also stated, “We are taking steps to make the European financial system with Iran (INSTEX) more active.”