The United States, which is pushing to isolate Iran, denounced an “inexcusable” vote. For its part, Tehran welcomed the vote, saying Washington has “never been so isolated.”
Washington was not deluding itself but hoped to appear less alone in its strategy to fight Iranian nuclear power. It did not work. The United Nations (UN) Security Council rejected, Friday, August 14, a US resolution to extend the embargo on arms sales to Iran which expires in October, angering the United States, which denounced an “inexcusable” vote.
Washington’s plan has only been approved by two countries, said Indonesia, which currently chairs the forum. Two others, Russia and China, voted against and the remaining eleven Council members abstained, including France, the United Kingdom and Germany, European allies of the United States.
If the text had obtained nine favorable votes, Beijing and Moscow – who intend to be able to sell arms to Tehran in the near future – would certainly have vetoed them as permanent members, but this was not necessary.
“The United States will never abandon our friends in the region who expected more from the Security Council. We will continue to work to ensure that the theocratic terrorist regime is not free to buy and sell weapons that threaten the heart of Europe, the Middle East and beyond”, lamented the head of the US diplomacy, Mike Pompeo, in a statement.
According to the Secretary of State, the world institution, which brings together the great powers (United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom and France), “has today failed to fulfill its fundamental mission”, namely “maintain international peace and security”.
The Security Council rejected a reasonable resolution to extend a thirteen-year-old arms embargo on Iran and paved the way for the world’s leading terrorist-supporting state to buy and sell conventional arms without restrictions from the United States. “UN, for the first time in more than a decade,” he lamented, saying that it had gone against the wishes of many Arab countries and Israel.
Washington “isolated”, according to Tehran!
For its part, Tehran welcomed the vote: “In 75 years of United Nations history, America has never been so isolated,” tweeted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Moussavi.
“Despite all the travel, pressure and hawking, the United States could only mobilize a small country (to vote) with them,” he said, alluding to Mike Pompeo’s efforts to rally support to the American resolution.
During the UN vote, “last night, Iran’s active diplomacy and the legal force of (the nuclear agreement) again defeated the United States in the Security Council,” said delighted Mr. Moussavi.
Strong test!
This vote should pave the way for a long showdown with repercussions for the 2015 international agreement reached to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The arms embargo will in effect expire on October 18, under the terms of the resolution endorsing the agreement.
However, although President Donald Trump in 2018 withdrew the United States from the Iranian nuclear agreement, which he deemed insufficient, American diplomacy is now threatening to invoke its status as a country “participating” in this same text, resulting from the 2015 resolution, to unilaterally impose the reinstatement of the UN sanctions lifted in exchange for Iranian nuclear commitments. Mike Pompeo, however, did not directly reiterate this threat in his post-vote statement.
Such a maneuver, on the basis of a legal argument contested by many members of the Council, including among Washington’s European allies, would risk pushing Iran to definitively slam the door of the nuclear deal, which it already has. started to disengage. And therefore to record the death of the text of 2015.
Critics of the American approach suspect the Trump administration of precisely wanting to achieve this fatal outcome before the presidential election in November in the United States, and several countries, however a priori in favor of an extension of the embargo, like the Europeans, therefore refused to play the American game.
Macron-Trump exchange for urgent action!
The end of the embargo “could have serious consequences for regional security and stability”, acknowledged Anne Gueguen, Deputy Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations.
“However, France abstained on the proposed draft resolution because it does not constitute an appropriate response,” she added, accusing the Americans half-heartedly of not having sought consensus and of putting endangered “the authority and integrity of the security Council.
According to the White House, the American President, Donald Trump, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, spoke on Friday, during a telephone interview, “the urgent need for UN action to extend the embargo on arms in Iran”.
