The United Nations Security Council adopted “snapback” sanctions on Iran on Saturday, due to the regime’s refusal to cooperate on nuclear monitoring, restoring sanctions to where they were before President Barack Obama’s deal.
The “snapback” provisions of the deal were thought to be toothless, since it was difficult to envision a situation in which European nations would back U.S. demands to restore sanctions on Iran.
But President Donald Trump’s strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities at the end of Israel’s 12 Day War with Iran set events in motion, with Iran pulling out of monitoring commitments and the world understanding the risks.
The Associated Press reported:
The United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran early Sunday over its nuclear program, further squeezing the Islamic Republic as its people increasingly find themselves priced out of the food they need to survive and worried about their futures.
The sanctions will again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran, and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures. It came via a mechanism known as “snapback,” included in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and comes as Iran’s economy already is reeling.
Iran’s rial currency sits at a record low, increasing pressure on food prices and making daily life that much more challenging. That includes meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table.
As Breitbart News reported last month, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom set the snapback sanctions in motion. Russia and China, which would normally veto sanctions to protect Iran, cannot do so under the terms of the Iran nuclear deal originally adopted by the Security Council in 2015.
The AP adds that Iran faces economic instability and that it has executed more people in the past year than in the previous three decades.
Obama originally argued that the “snapback” sanctions would prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
That was never true: Iran pursued nuclear weapons, regardless, and might have achieved them had Trump not bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Now, with Iran defying the world, the sanctions have indeed snapped back — after military action, not before, and with an effect likely not anticipated by the Obama administration when it negotiated the deal.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
The post UN Triggers ‘Snapback’ Sanctions on Iran; Rial Hits Record Low appeared first on Breitbart.
