Snapback Mechanism , a Broken Knife

Humiliating defeat of the White House during the United Nations Security Council voting on the U.S. resolution for extending Iran arms embargo has gripped madly U.S. President Donald Trump and his surroundings from his Secretary of State to his National Security Advisor and even the U.S. Ambassador at the UN so that all have been infuriated in a way that they did not think of being remained so isolated in exercising their political will against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

After consecutive defeats in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Venezuela, and with a disgraceful record due to assassinating of Martyr Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and in order to undermine those defeats, the White House has tried in these days to present a resolution to the UNSC in order to take initiative in a way  to compensate the small part of its recent defeats, and to block lifting the Iran arms embargo which ends in October. Fortunately they did not achieve any success either in this issue.

Raging bulls in the Spanish bullfighting, after several times that they run in chase of the red cloth and failing to stop the bullfighter, strive madly and sometimes in the old tradition of “Saint Fermin”, they die of sorrow and anger. Nowadays Trump is in such a condition. Immediately after the result of the UNSC voting on the U.S. resolution on Iran arms embargo announced, Trump started efforts for attack and he throws his hand to grab any dust and trash at the time of drowning. In other words, we can say snapback mechanism is one of these efforts.

This time the White House has decided to highlight snapback mechanism and it tries by the scenario of the broken knife not to retreat at least in the media world and to compensate its defeat against the Islamic Republic of Iran by resorting to this mechanism.

Snapback mechanism is a JCPOA measure which has been stipulated in the articles 11 and 12 of Iran’s nuclear deal, namely the JCPOA. In a simple word one should say that snapback mechanism means immediate return to the pre-JCPOA era and return of the sanctions against Iran. In the Resolution 2231 of the UN, it has been mentioned that in case one of the signatories of the nuclear deal, the JCPOA, comprising of Germany, France, UK, Russia, China, the U.S. and Iran complains about lack of commitment, the complaint should be first reviewed at the joint commission of the JCPOA and if they do not reach an agreement, the case is to be referred to the UNSC.

This mechanism is applicable for those countries which are still committed to the JCPOA. When Mr. Trump officially signed the pullout of the U.S. from the JCPOA, the meaning of using the snapback mechanism by the U.S. is exactly the same as the behavior of a raging bull which has suffered defeat from the matador.

The bullfighting, ,which is called “Saint Fermin” and every year it was held on July 6 for seven days in the city of Pamplona in Spain, has precise instructions. According to the instructions and rules of the game, the matador after noticing disappointment and haplessness in the defeated bull should not attack at it or hitting his sword on it because this innocent animal is itself passing on due to fear and disappointment.

In the snapback mechanism exactly the same conditions are raised that if one of the permanent members of the UNSC vetoes , all sanctions will return automatically without re-voting about the previous resolutions of the UNSC against Iran as one of most important one was the Resolution 1929  which had been approved against Iran. In fact in this condition, the JCPOA will be totally destroyed and multilateral sanctions against Iran would return. But regarding the JCPOA, the condition is not so. There has been no obligation left that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not fulfilled in advance, of course, due to the imprudence of the Iranian officials.

So even those countries that still left in the JCPOA feel there is no justification for activating the mechanism leverage, let alone the U.S. which is not today a member of the JCPOA.

 By: Hamid Reza Naghashian