Pompeo Heads to New York To Blow Up the UN Security Council

Aug. 19, 2020 (EIRNS)—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is determined to blow up the UN Security Council. The Associated Press reports this morning that Pompeo is traveling to New York on Aug. 20 to formally notify the Security Council president that the United States is invoking the “snap back” mechanism in UN Security Council resolution 2231, the resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. AP notes that practically everybody is opposed to the U.S. intention, not only Russia and China but Britain and France as well. They maintain the U.S. lost its standing when President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the accord in 2018, but it isn’t clear if they can stop the invocation of snap back through technical procedural means. Even John Bolton, who AP claims “is no slouch” when it comes to Iran, disagrees with the U.S. argument. Former Obama Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman told AP that “It was never expected that someone who withdrew from the (deal) would have standing to in fact bring the snap back provision.”

Thus, the administration’s insistence on moving ahead has set the stage for a contentious dispute and the possibility that the U.S. call would simply be ignored by other UN members. That outcome, AP says, would potentially call into question the Security Council’s ability to enforce its own legally binding decisions which would obviously do great damage to the institution itself.

Pompeo is expected to present what he will argue is evidence of Iran’s “significant non-compliance” with 2231, likely to include the latest reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Not observed by AP is that the resolution also calls on the U.S., as well as the European participants in the agreement, to lift sanctions on Iran, a provision that the U.S. has clearly been in violation of since reimposing sanctions in 2018. The resolution also gives Iran certain rights to act to reduce its commitments, if one of the other parties to the agreement fails to abide by its obligations even after going through the procedures specified in the dispute resolution provision. Iran’s reductions in compliance followed those procedures.

Pompeo’s meetings at the UN will follow by just two days, the 67th anniversary of the 1953 MI6/CIA instigated overthrow of the popularly elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh, a coup that resulted in the 26-year dictatorship of the Shah, a dictatorship that itself was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In noting that anniversary, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the following: “67 years ago today, U.S./U.K. tried to suffocate the Iranian people’s demand for dignity in a coup overthrowing their elected government. Since 1979, the U.S. has desperately tried to resuscitate the past. Yet it keeps getting humiliated by the Iranian people. Time to change tack?”