The United Nations Security Council rejected the Trump administration's resolution that would keep in place the ban on weapons concerning Iran that is set to expire on October 18. The Security Council approved the ban and it became a part of the nuclear agreement in 2015. This was the nuclear agreement Trump walked away from by withdrawing the United States from the agreement.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo failed to convince the Security Council to vote and extend the ban. Russia and China vetoed and voted against the U.S. resolution and only the Dominican Republic voted for it. The weapons ban applied to conventional weapons imported and exported by Iran to and from their country.
It was a bitter defeat for Trump's foreign policy and after the resolution failed Trump said he would go back to the United Nations and demand a provision in the agreement called "snapback" which was placed in the agreement for safety purposes should Iran be in violation as authority to reimpose the ban be implemented.
Russia, China and a United Nations spokesman said the United States had no say in "snapback" since Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018. And Russia and China added they would not vote or support such a resolution. Its ironic that Trump falsely claimed the agreement was flawed and now wants to use the safety clause of "snapback" in the agreement. It should also be noted that prior to Trumps withdrawal, Iran was in compliance with the agreement, were not a threat to shipping in the area as Trump says they are and were not enriching nuclear material to weapons grade. But with the agreement in shambles since Trump pulled out, Iran is slowly and surely enriching nuclear material over and above what was allowed by the agreement.
Trump's decision to pull out of the agreement was and still is a major foreign policy blunder and now the U.S. and Iran are farther apart than ever and dangerously close to a warlike atmosphere as the rhetoric heats up. Trump's trade war with China and his cozy relationship with Putin has destroyed any chance of a U.S. resolution reaching bipartisan support in the United Nations Security Council. Putin continues to control Trump's foreign policy and that is bad news for America. Putin and Russia are actually more involved in that part of the world than the United States.
And as previously reported in PolitiDose, the U.S. and the world knows more about Iran's nuclear capabilities because of the agreement that allows inspections to take place of Iran's facilities. But no one knows Israel, Pakistan or India's nuclear capabilities because they will not allow any outsiders inspect their nuclear facilities. In other words those 3 countries are a greater threat for a nuclear event than Iran is in the middle east and that part of the world.
The agreement kept Iran's nuclear program for domestic consumption and Trump's withdrawal was a foreign policy disaster made possible by Trump's mental unfitness to lead.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
