US is willing to dismantle the UN Security Council to put pressure on Iran

In a world where American exceptionalism and unilateralism has become common currency, the brazenness of Secretary of State Pompeo’s bid to impose “snap back” inspections of Iran takes the cake. Moreover, it’s doomed to fail.

When it comes to Iran and the Iran nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), President Trump has been singularly focused on one outcome–to bring the Islamic Republic back to the negotiation table for the purpose of producing a “better deal” than the one done by his predecessor, Barack Obama, in July 2015. For the former New York realtor and reality television star-turned Chief Executive, it does not get any simpler than that–he is, after all, the consummate (if self-proclaimed) “deal maker.” How the deal is made, and even what constitutes the deal, is less important than the deal itself. This goal dominated his thinking about Iran as a candidate and continues to do so as President.

The precipitous decision to withdraw from the JCPOA in May 2018 was driven more by the perceived need to begin shaping the diplomatic battlefield in support of a new negotiation than any legitimate national security concerns. Trump’s goal all along has been to compel Iran, through the implementation of economic sanctions combined with political isolation, to scrap the Obama-era JCPOA and sit down with the new American “deal maker” to craft a “big deal” that would make everyone happy.

America versus the world

The problem from the start, however, was that the United States was alone with its displeasure over how the deal was being implemented. Among the other parties to the JCPOA (France, Great Britain, Germany, the EU, Russia, China and Iran), the agreement was proving its viability by preventing Iran from engaging in any “breakout” actions that could result in Iran obtaining enough fissile material from its centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program to build a nuclear device. Trump, however, had latched on to the so-called “sunset clauses” of the JCPOA, which lifted restrictions on Iran’s use of centrifuges after a period of several years, allowing Iran to blow-past the hypothetical calculations regarding nuclear “breakout,” and thereby mooting the fundamental purpose of the JCPOA to begin with.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/498700-us-iran-un-sanctions/