President Donald Trump said on Monday that the situation with Iran is in “dangerous territory” as his administration announced Saturday that he was talking to Iran.
It is still unknown what the speech will achieve, but experts continue to warn that time is running out of time to not only block Iran’s nuclear program, but also to use existing tools to counter the dismissal of Tehran’s international law, a mechanism known as “snapback” sanctions.
“This may have the ability to impose new sanctions on Iran that does not need the help of Russia and China, and we can do that unilaterally,” Gabriel Noron of the American National Security Association told Fox News Digital. Nolongha is an Iranian expert and former special advisor to the State Department’s Iran Action Group.
The ability to adopt snapback sanctions in Iran expires on October 18th, 2025. This coincides with Russia leading the UN Security Council (UNSC) president for a spinning month stint.
UN Security Council (Reuters/Stephanis Pindel/File)
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The snapback sanctions provisions were enacted under UNSC Resolution 2231. This was agreed only days after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed in 2015 as a way to ensure that international sanctions could be reconsidered once again if Iran was found to be in violation of the nuclear deal.
The JCPOA has been seen as an increasingly collapsed agreement after the US withdrawal under the first Trump administration in 2018.
This led to a rapid expansion of Tehran’s nuclear program and an assessment by the United Nations Nuclear Watch Agency that it had gathered arms-grade uranium small enough to develop five nuclear weapons if Tehran is further enriched earlier this year.
The centrifuge was shown in 2019 at the Natantuuran enrichment facility in central Iran. (Iranian atomic energy organization via AP)
For years, European countries have refused to enact snapback sanctions in a move to encourage Tehran to return to the negotiation table and find solutions to diplomatically end its nuclear program.
JCPOA participants can unilaterally invoke snapback sanctions if they find that Iran is in violation of the terms of the contract. However, the United States, which has been seeking snapbacks since 2018, has been discovered by the United Nations and all JCPOA members that they no longer have legal qualification to exploit the sanctions mechanism after withdrawing from the international agreement.
But as Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, the tone among European leaders has also become increasingly frustrating.
The French foreign minister last week suggested that military intervention appears to be “almost inevitable” if Iran disagrees with nuclear deals and suspends its program.
The Foundation for Democracy Defence has analyzed where Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is. (Foundation of Democracy)
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“Iran should never acquire nuclear weapons,” Foreign Minister Jean Noel Barrott reportedly told the French Parliament on Wednesday.
“Our priority is to reach an agreement that validates and lasts a constraint on Iran’s nuclear program,” he added.
Even as Trump says he is tired of Tehran and clarifying his administration’s willingness to discuss his deal with Tehran, it remains unclear how long he willing to refrain from discussing with Iran.
France served as UNSC president in April and must immediately call for snapback sanctions, Norlon said, as it was able to be adopted by UNSC members who support Russia blocking bureaucratic nuclear programs.
“It will take about six weeks for it to actually be implemented properly,” said Noron, author of “UN Security Council Resolution 2231, and the Road to Snapback,” which was released last week. “And second, because the distribution of presidents and leadership on the UN Security Council is weighted to a more favorable leader this spring in the spring before becoming a rather hostile leadership in the summer and fall.”
After it was released in Tehran on May 7, 2023, an Iranian medium-range ballistic missile called Haber (Hiber-4) can be seen. (via Iranian Ministry of Defense/Hanodut/Anadoru Agency Getty Images)
Experts said this was a rare moment for UNSC. This has become increasingly ineffective in achieving major geopolitical victories in recent years, as it is generally divided between the US, UK and France and on the other hand between Russia and China.
A single veto is sufficient to block the resolutions being enacted, and council progress has stagnated following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
However, even if Russia opposes revamping sanctions against Iran, Tehran has become a close ally of Moscow, so in reality, there is little option to block the previously agreed snapback mechanism, as long as at least one other country is actually seeking sanctions tools.
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“This is the only time that has happened before at the United Nations,” Noronha said. “They basically said that when we call out snapbacks, what they do is say they’ll automatically return unless there’s a vote that unanimously allows UN sanctions to leave plenary relief in the book.”
The snapback mechanism legally enforces all 15 UNSC member states to reimpose sanctions against Iran, including all countries that may be sympathetic to Russia or Tehran.
If the snapback mechanism comes into effect in October, the UN could be tied up when it comes to countering Iran’s nuclear program. This is because given the current geopolitical climate between the West and Russia, it is unlikely that a new resolution on the issue will pass the council.
