Transcript: Webinar – Use It or Lose It: The Last Chance for Snapback Sanctions on Iran
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PANELISTS
Amb. Eric Edelman
JINSA Distinguished Scholar
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Hon. Stephen Rademaker
JINSA Senior Advisor and Iran Task Force Member
Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation
Jonathan Ruhe
JINSA Director of Foreign Policy
Blaise Misztal
JINSA Vice President for Policy
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TRANSCRIPT
Please note quotations have been edited for flow and clarity.
Blaise Misztal:
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our webinar on “Use It or Lose It” about snapback sanctions against Iran. I’m Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy. Thank you so much for joining us on our esteemed panel. We have Ambassador Eric Edelman, Distinguished Scholar at JINSA, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Stephen Rademaker, also a fellow at JINSA and former Assistant Secretary of State, and my colleague, the Director of Foreign Policy here at JINSA, Jonathan Ruhe.
Thank you so much for being with us on this rather timely webinar. It reminds me that some of us were on a webinar about a different deadline on June 11, when President Trump’s 60-day deadline for negotiations with Iran ran out, and it was obviously just a day before Israel launched Operation Rising Lion. I guess this time, our webinar has been preempted, and the Europeans have actually triggered snapback earlier this morning. So, very interested to hear from everybody on what we think happens next. But Jonathan, maybe I could start with you to walk us through what exactly snapback is and why it matters.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Sure. Thank you. So, when we talk about snapback, it’s a sort of term that was created around the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], and it’s sort of, in some ways, a kill switch or a self-destruct mechanism for that deal. Because the JCPOA basically put on ice a series of six UN Security Council resolutions all passed from 2006 to 2010 in response to Iran’s violations of its Non-Proliferation safeguards agreements that basically prohibited what we think of when we think of Iran’s nuclear activity, enrichment, reprocessing, heavy water production, things like that. But also, that prohibited, essentially, Iran from proliferating weapons around the region, working on nuclear capable ballistic missiles, and conducting, what we’d call it, conventional arms trade with the rest of the world. And so those are the UN Security Council sanctions that are being now snapped back—that would resume being in effect after they were effectively frozen for the last decade.
And I’ll just say, conversely, the snapback sanctions are time limited in that if they are not snapped back by October 18, it’s not just simply that the U.S., the European Union, and frankly, the rest of the world, have missed an opportunity to impose harsh sanctions. It’s actually worse than that, because, if it’s not snapped back on October 18, the ability to ever reimpose such sanctions will disappear on Iran, because the language put out through the JCPOA, and the resolution that endorsed it said the UN Security Council will terminate its consideration of all these matters—those matters being Iran’s violation of its Non-Proliferation requirements.
Misztal:
So, Ambassador Edelman, if snapback was meant to be invoked or used if and when Iran violated the terms of the JCPOA, why hasn’t it been invoked yet? I mean, for at least the last four years now, Iran has been enriching to levels and quantities well beyond what was allowed by the JCPOA. So why haven’t we had snapback yet?
Amb. Eric Edelman:
Well, Blaise, before I try to answer that question, let me just say that the reason why the snapback provisions were put into this agreement at the outset was [due to] concern on the part of critics of the Obama administration, which negotiated this, and the negotiation as it proceeded, which included, as you’ll recall, in 2013, an interim agreement before the final agreement was reached in 2015. … Once the agreement was in place, it wasn’t clear that [if] all the parties to the agreement would necessarily demand the same level of compliance by Iran that those of us in the United States would hope would be demanded.
And so, the idea of this mechanism was that the United States alone, if necessary, if it concluded that Iran was not complying, could force the UN sanctions to be reimposed on Iran. And the agreement itself specified the different elements of the sanctions regime that Jonathan just spelled out would expire at different times. Some of them have already sort of expired. So, for instance, the limitation on the ballistic missile program, unconventional arms transfers, et cetera, have all expired.
There was an attempt by the Trump administration in first term, in the summer and fall of 2020, Under Secretary Pompeo, to invoke snapback. But our European allies, as well as the other parties, the Russians, Chinese EU, et cetera, concluded that because the United States had suspended its participation in the JCPOA, it was not in a position to invoke the snapback.
The thing that has changed here is that the European allies, over a period of time, have become concerned by Iran’s lack of compliance, particularly the enrichment of large amounts of uranium at 60 percent or above that they themselves, with some prodding from the U.S., have been undertaking a consideration of snapback.
This is now intersected, I would add, with, of course, the impact of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion and U.S. Operation Midnight Hammer. And so, the questions that are now out there are whether Iran will try to resuscitate its nuclear program in the aftermath of the destruction wreaked on it by a combination of Israeli and U.S. military activity [or] whether they will come back into compliance with their obligations under the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and the agreements with the IAEA. I mean, after the strikes, after Operation Midnight Hammer, UN inspectors left. They went back in yesterday, but they’ve been limited, essentially, to those facilities that were not struck. And so, there are outstanding questions about what’s left of Iran’s stockpile—what other facilities that were not hit might still be operating, whether they’ll be subject to IAEA inspections, et cetera. The Iranians engaged in some desultory discussions with the EU3 about this. They were unable—the EU3 had a series of desiderata. One was come back into compliance, to declare everything that was outstanding, and then to enter into negotiations, serious negotiations, with the United States to reach some kind of agreement.
I think the Iranians failed on all scores, although they made this effort to at least throw dust in the air, by saying that IAEA inspectors could come back, but also saying that if snapback was invoked, then that could put an end to their cooperation with the IAEA. So that’s kind of where we stand, and that’s why we have not invoked snapback [heretofore].
The question now is, what comes next? Because it’s not completely straightforward that the previous six UN Security Council resolutions, and Steve’s more [of an] expert on all this than I am, but will all come back into effect immediately, because there’s a dispute resolution mechanism that the EU3 will have to trigger. There’s a time clock on that and then there’s got to be a UN Security Council Resolution, which, in essence, is a negative resolution that would say, “if snapback, doesn’t come back, the U.S., of course, and the EU3, or at least two of the EU3 can veto that.” And then you would be back, you know, in business.
But there are other steps that would have to be taken. You’d have to recreate the panel of experts that the UN had monitoring the previous sanctions regime. There’s reason to believe the Russians would veto that, since they just recently vetoed an effort to reaffirm the panel of experts that’s been overseeing the North Korea sanctions. And given the tightening cooperation among Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran, it’s very possible that we will see lots of obstruction on the part of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and Russia as this process goes forward.
Misztal:
Yeah, so, Steve, maybe you could talk us through some of the intricacies of the UN process to get the snapback process going. Because as, I guess, Ambassador Edelman said, it’s called snapback. But it doesn’t mean the sanctions come back on in a snap—it’s actually a convoluted process.
The Hon. Stephen Rademaker:
That’s true. Are you able to hear me okay? Okay, good. Well, it’s a convoluted process, but given the action today, it’s actually become somewhat more simplified. We are now on a glide path to, essentially, automatic snapback 30 days after today, which would be on September 27 at midnight Greenwich Mean Time. Unless—there are two ways that that would not happen at this point. One would be if the UN Security Council adopts a resolution, essentially providing that the sanctions relief that Iran has enjoyed since the JCPOA came into force should continue. In other words, a Security Council resolution that sets aside the snapback process. The United States could veto that resolution. Britain and France could veto that resolution.
So, I think we’ll probably see the Russians put forward a resolution proposing that. But, and actually, the way the Security Council resolution reads, if no member country puts forward such a resolution, the president of the Security Council is required to put forward such a resolution to see if it’s vetoed. And I would expect, [with] what I know of the Trump administration’s policy, they would veto it, if not also the British and the French.
But there is a second mechanism by which the snapback process can be stopped, and that would be that the countries that have asked for the snapback could inform the Security Council that they’re now satisfied that the concerns that led them to trigger the snapback have been satisfactorily resolved. And if they do that, that stops the snapback in its tracks. So, they are in a position unilaterally to do that, and that’s not subject to a veto. And for that reason, if you read the EU3 statement that was issued today, they talk about the possible snapback.
So, they’re holding out hope that something could happen diplomatically over the next 30 days that would either lead to the adoption of a new UN Security Council resolution that sets aside or postpones the snapback, or alternatively, that leads them to pull back their notification they provided today that triggered the snapback process.
If they do that, if they pull back their notification, unless something else happens between now and October 18, come October 18, UN Security Council Resolution 2231 will expire, and with it will expire the ability to trigger snapback thereafter. So, it would have to be quite a diplomatic deal for the Europeans to be willing to pull back their notification of today.
On the other hand, it does give them leverage against the Trump administration, because if they want the Trump administration not to veto a Security Council resolution of some kind, and the Trump administration is threatening to do that, they can actually threaten to upend the entire process by revoking what they’ve done today.
So, I think over the next 30 days, the diplomacy will continue. The Europeans want to continue it. Snapback is not their preferred outcome here. I think they’re frustrated the Iranians haven’t been willing to give them more negotiations. Maybe over the next 30 days they will as the certainty of snapback becomes apparent to Iran. But the Iranians should have foreseen this. So, if they if they were prepared to make concessions, they’d probably been better off doing it before today.
Misztal:
So, the crib from the Clausewitz snapback is the continuation of diplomacy by other means?
Rademaker:
For the next 30 days it is. But once it takes effect, Ambassador Edelman is right, the Russians and the Chinese are in a position to bollocks up, UN enforcement and implementation of Security Council resolutions.
And we were talking here about six UN Security Council resolutions, sanctions resolutions that were adopted between 2006 and 2010 obviously, in a very different political environment than we face today at the UN because the Russians and the Chinese agreed to those resolutions in the 2006 to 2010 period. They would never agree to those kinds of measures today, I believe. But the legal requirements of those resolutions will kick back into force, even if the UN’s ability to monitor and make determinations, make designations, even if that is not revived, the legal prohibitions will be, you know, there’s a legal prohibition on enrichment by Iran. So, Iran will be violating international law if it continues enriching after the snapback.
Arms transfers, the sanctions relief under the JCPOA was phased in, and many of the phases have already taken place. So, for example, there was a UN-imposed arms embargo on Iran that expired about a year ago. Interestingly, and I just mentioned this in passing, it was a two-way embargo. It was a prohibition on arms transfers to Iran, but also a prohibition on arms transfers from Iran, right? I don’t know that there was a great deal of concern about arms transfers from Iran. Maybe to terrorist groups there was concern, but to other governments in 2015.
But with the order of Ukraine, we’ve witnessed this astonishing development that now Iran is an important arms supplier to Russia in its war against Ukraine. I suspect that in the real world, if there’s a snapback, Iran will continue supplying weapons to Russia. But after snapback, that will be a violation of international law. It will be a violation of binding UN Security prohibition on those kinds of transfers. So that will be a good thing. [It] give us enhanced authority to do something about the shipments, to try and intercept them, if we [have] allies there to do that.
But Ambassador Edelman is right that the practical ability of the UN to do things will be limited by the disagreement among the permanent members of the Security Council that exists today. But the legal prohibitions, I think, are critically important. You know, I guess the other reflection of that is from a pure sanctions perspective. The only sanctions Iran has been under since 2018 are unilaterally imposed U.S. secondary sanctions. They’ve been highly effective–most European companies are afraid to do business in Iran because of the threat of U.S. sanctions. But there have been no European sanctions on Iran. The threat of us secondary sanctions, that has accounted for all of the economic isolation.
Following snapback, the Europeans will consider that under international law, they are required to reimpose all of their sanctions too. So European companies, after snapback, will be subject not only to the risk of U.S. secondary sanctions, but they’ll have to be even more concerned about the reimposed EU and UK sanctions that they would face in dealing with Iran.
Misztal:
Thanks Stephen. Please, let me just point out just really quickly, Ambassador, that for those that do want to know more about the UN sanctions that would go into effect, as well as what the process and timing is for snapback to work, I’d commend our paper by our colleague, Gabe Noronha, back from April, called The Path to Snapback, which lays all of that out. But go ahead, Ambassador, sorry for interrupting.
Edelman:
Just two things. One, I mean, I agree very much with Steve that the importance of the arms embargo being a legal obligation now once snapback goes into effect, is important, and would in face make Russian arms transfers from Iran illegal. I would just note that the Russians, I mean, the horse is a little bit out of the barn on that in the sense that the Russians have already indigenized the production of what was the Iranian Shahed-136 drone factory in Alabuga. And they’ve now rebranded it as the Geran-2. And so, you know, there, in terms of on the battlefield effect with Russia, there’s a little bit of a limit on that.
And then the other thing I would say is that, when Steve said quite rightly, that the situation we find ourselves in now gives the Europeans a certain amount of leverage vis-a-vis the Trump administration, I think, I would say, it’s leverage in order to get themselves inserted into the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, which they had been a part of in the run up to the JCPOA, have been excluded from by the Trump administration. And I don’t know that it’s necessarily going to be adversarial, although it could be. It could well be actually helpful to have them involved in the negotiation with Iran, if we actually get into one, which is a very open question, since the Supreme Leader has said that there should be no direct negotiations with the U.S.
Misztal:
Yeah, let me ask Jonathan, but I’d be curious for all of your thoughts: why have the Iranians sort of been reluctant to enter into negotiations, or to give satisfaction to the Europeans enough to push off snapback? It would seem that they’re a much weaker position now than they were before June 13, not just after Operation Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer, but, you know, their economy is faltering. They can’t supply enough water and electricity to their people. It should seem that they should be scared of the sanctions threat. They should be scared of potentially pushing the U.S. and the Europeans together against them. They’ve usually been pretty good about doing just enough to suggest that they’re willing to play ball, to delay any pressure, to drive a wedge between Europe and the U.S. And in this case, they didn’t seem to do that. Do we have a sense of why that is?
Ruhe:
You know, I think a big part of it is, if I’m the Iranians, I’m at least somewhat rightly surprised that the E3 have gone through with their threat, perhaps less surprised than before, given that Iran has effectively responded to the 12-day war by blocking all IEA inspection inspections in the country, and even essentially putting out a death threat on the IAEA Director Grossi, which even by Iran’s years of obstructions of its safeguards, that’s an escalation.
You know, I think this is, by my count, at least the fourth resolution in the IAEA censure resolution for Iran’s noncompliance over the last five years. Iran has heard plenty of threats before about snapback. Before the recent war, they heard unified U.S., and E3 threats to actually enact snapback. In fact, right before the 12-day war, back that afternoon, the IAEA formally found Iran in breach of its safeguards’ obligations. So essentially, there were kind of a failure to put their money where their mouth is. In the past, Iran felt pretty confident that they could continue to threaten to retaliate, in very escalatory fashion by, perhaps, as we mentioned, leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether or formally ending its compliance with those obligations, which in fact, they’ve in fact been doing since the end of the 12-day war. But the E3 and less directly, the United States, have continued to entertain the idea of talks regardless.
And I think, just additionally, you mentioned the U.S. came out today, Secretary Rubio came out today and officially supported what the E3 has done. But as we here at JINSA always talk about the dangerous daylight between the United States and Israel, and the more of that there is, the more Iran feels confident that they can win at the negotiating table, or even by, sort of, as you said, leaving the door open to negotiations.
And I think recently, say, since the 12-day war, up until today, if I’m the Iranians, I’ve seen a fair amount of daylight on a diplomatic level between the United States and the E3 mostly in silence coming out of Washington about fully supporting what the E3 was actually going to do.
Misztal:
Do we know if any of the internal political shake up and debate that’s been going on inside of Iran after Operation Rising Lion is playing a role? Are they able to make the decisions needed to begin negotiations or strike a deal? Are they in political disarray, or do we think that they’re they have a pretty clear strategy at this point, Ambassador?
Edelman:
Well, it’s a good question, Blaise. I don’t know that we know the answer completely. I mean, obviously there are a number of senior leaders in the IRGC [that] were killed. There’s been a restructuring of the Iranian defense and national security decision making structures and processes. The president, [Massoud] Pezeshkian and Ali Larijani, who is now back in a key role in the National Security Council, [has] apparently been making the argument for returning to negotiations. There was the statement that I noted earlier by the Supreme Leader pouring some cold water on that.
My sense is that it’s not a completely resolved issue, and I think the Iranians, to get back to your earlier question about why they didn’t show a little bit more angle in the negotiations in order to do, as you suggested in your question, you know, delay and try and hold off the reimposition. And there was a Russian proposal to have a six-month extension by the Security Council of the snapback the October 18 snapback deadline. And one might have thought that the Iranians would see that as an opportunity to, you know, delay, drive wedges, etc., but it would have required for the EU to buy that, you know, a little bit more than you can, you know, have IAEA inspectors at Bushehr, which is essentially the position the Iranians ended up taking.
I think they’re in a, [I] mean, there’s some decision-making disarray. I think they’re also facing a deterrence deficit that is bedeviling their decision making, which is to say, the nuclear program as it existed before June 12 has not been maybe completely obliterated, but it has been dealt grievous damage. I think that we can pretty much all agree on. They’ve only been the most limited steps that we’ve been able to observe from commercially available overhead photography that they’ve taken at the previous facilities that were hit by both the Israelis and Operation Midnight Hammer. We still are not, of course, 100 percent sure about exactly where their stockpile of uranium enriched at 60 percent is [and] what the residual is from after the raids. There are two facilities that were not hit, one in Isfahan, the other at Pickaxe Mountain, that may have some centrifuge capability. Some people have suggested that they could race to a bomb.
My sense is they would like to keep as much ambiguity about all this as possible, in the hope that that might deter further military action. My sense, though, is that they’re not necessarily reading the tea leaves correctly. I think excessive cuteness on their part about this could actually prompt resumption of military action by Israel and perhaps the U.S., rather than deter it.
Misztal:
So maybe I could get all of you to weigh in on what you think the likelihood that we’re actually going to see the snapback process run its full course, and the six UN Security Council resolutions go back into a force versus, you know, the Iranians suddenly being willing to negotiate enough to get the Europeans to call it off, or the Russians gumming up the diplomatic work somehow? What are the chances that we actually have these sanctions back on? Steve?
Rademaker:
Well, I think I probably answered that question earlier in my previous remarks. I think the best window for the Iranians to have made concessions was prior to today, prior to the commencement of the snapback process. But, you know, … we don’t fully understand the political dynamic in Iran. I agree entirely with Ambassador Edelman that it looks to me like a good deal to have been offered to the Iranians, that there would be a postponement of the possibility of snapback for at least six months. All they had to do was go to Oman again in a hotel room and pass notes back and forth to an American delegation. They would have had to increase the access that the IAEA had. But I mean, the Iranians are masters at sort of promising that and then not fully delivering. There would have been any number of opportunities for them to play with that.
So, I think what they’ve done here is probably not rational. It’s probably more emotional. And you know, consequence of their own politics, where anybody who wanted to make concessions would have, would have found themselves on political outs with hardliners. So, I think that dynamic is likely to continue to apply, and so we’re most likely to see snapback. But who knows, maybe, now that the process has really been triggered, no one in Iran is going to be able to get away with saying the Europeans are bluffing, and maybe they will reevaluate.
I do think if there is a process progress with Iran, the Europeans are going to want to accept it, because I think actual snapback is not their preferred outcome. I think they’re worried about the Iranian threats of suspending cooperation with the IAEA, or, even more significantly, the threat to withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And I think the Europeans probably buy the argument that the threat of sanctions snapback is a more powerful tool to them diplomatically than where they will be after actual snapback.
So, they probably see this as a loss of leverage if the snapback actually takes place. I disagree with that assessment. I think increases leverage, but diplomats–
Edelman:
But they lose all their leverage. Steve, if, if they were to allow snapback to expire. I mean, if they got a six-month extension and they didn’t get anywhere and it expired, they would then lose all their leverage with the Iranians and with the U.S.
Rademaker:
Yeah, I think if the Europeans threaten to do that, you know, to get the Trump administration to go along with something it doesn’t like they’re probably bluffing, just because then they really lose their leverage after October 18. But it’ll be an interesting test of coordination between Washington and capitals in Europe if there is diplomatic progress and the Europeans want to cut a deal.
Edelman:
But it would also be in the light of Operation Midnight Hammer. I think it’ll be very hard for Europeans to calculate that the Trump administration was bluffing. If it says, you know, it’s not going to agree to this, that the deal doesn’t go far enough. There are previous administrations they might have negotiated with, who whose threats take military action they might not have credited—it’ll be very hard for them to do that with the Trump administration now.
Misztal:
But has the Trump administration evinced any interest in snapback actually happening? Have they been driving this forward, calling for it, pushing the Europeans to do this? It seems like they’ve largely sort of been bystanders to this process.
Rademaker:
Well, it is their declared policy, the NSPM [National Security Presidential Memorandum]. Anyway, the directive two issued by President Trump on Iran policy—one of the provisions was the State Department was directed to advocate with the Europeans for snapback. So that’s the declared policy. Now, were they actually doing anything in recent months to achieve that? I don’t know, but certainly what the Europeans have done today is the realization of something that President Trump declared in writing was a U.S. diplomatic goal.
Edelman:
I mean, there has been some coordination, in the sense that Secretary Rubio met yesterday with Rafael Grossi, and after that, had a conversation with the EU3 Foreign Minister. So, they’ve been, you know, coordinating. Whether they’ve been driving the process or not, I don’t know.
And certainly, as Secretary Rubio noted in the Cabinet meeting the other day, you know, he’s got four different jobs that he’s carrying on–plus a pretty busy diplomatic schedule on other issues. And they don’t have a confirmed Assistant Secretary for the Middle East.
So, it’s, you know, possible that, you know, there’s not been as much diplomatic activity as we might have normally seen. But doesn’t mean that it’s not been coordinated.
Ruhe:
I’ll just add, while it is officially U.S. policy to support snapback, we’ve also heard President Trump say, in the wake of the 12-day war that, you know, the military option remains open if Iran does indeed resume nuclear progress.
But that has not been tied, he has not leveraged that credibility that Ambassador Edelman spoke of, to Iran’s retaliatory threats attempt to deter snapback, or in the case of what many hardliners inside Iran might want, to actually leave the NPT or just quit officially cooperating the IAEA altogether. We haven’t seen anything connecting those threats directly to Trump’s warnings or red lines, whatever you want to call them, that the military option remains on the table If Iran does indeed try to begin reconstituting its damaged nuclear program.
Edelman:
Part of the challenge, I think, though Jonathan, for the Iranians, is [ that an] explicit withdrawal from the NPT could not be read as anything other than, you know, a decision to move forward with, you know, [the] pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
And, so although they might threaten that, I think … there’s a lot of reason to believe that they would be very careful before they would actually do that, because I do think it would, certainly in Israel, and I would expect with President Trump as well, elicit a concern that they are now, in fact, moving towards some kind of dash to a weapon, and probably light a match that would lead to the resumption of military action.
Misztal:
Just one or two more questions for me, and then I’m happy to open it up to the audience. If you do have questions for our panel, please submit them using the Q and A feature in zoom. It’s the button at the bottom of your screen. If you type out your question, I’ll be happy to read it to our panelists.
But Ambassador you’ve talked about, you know, sort of the role for possible negotiations and/or strong arming between the U.S. and the E3 on this issue. Is there any intersection between this issue of snapback and Iran diplomacy and the Russia-Ukraine file? Both given Iran’s role in arming Russia that we’ve talked about, but also in the presumably different levels of interests that the U.S. and E3 have in Iran versus Russia-Ukraine.
Edelman:
Well, of course, they’re linked, because the American negotiator for both, you know, the Iran nuclear file and Ukraine, is Steve Witkoff. And so, I mean, there’s a link in in that sense. I don’t know how much inside the administration, honestly, they have linked the two. And I think there might be some disposition to note that when Operation Midnight Hammer took place while Operation Rising Lion was underway, Russia did virtually nothing to actually support Iran directly.
That doesn’t mean, however, in my view, that they’re not looking for opportunities to resupply Iran. I wouldn’t be at all surprised. The only thing I think that keeps Russia from supplying Iran with S-400s is the fact that Russia needs them themselves because of the intensifying Long Range Strike campaign that Ukraine is waging against a variety of targets inside Russia, including railway junctions, logistic hubs, energy infrastructure targets, which have resulted in some pretty serious, but localized shortages of gasoline in Russia.
But I’m not sure that the, you know, failure for Russia to immediately come to Iran’s aid, in June necessarily translates into a, you know, willingness to just allow it to continue to be subject to U.S. and Israeli pressure without any Russian reaction. So, you know, I do think that these areas are linked by nature, as it were, whether or not other people are linking it.
Misztal:
Steve, Jack Kraft asks whether the mullahs care about international law. I guess, put another way, would these UN sanctions, if they were back in place, actually have any more effect on Iran than the U.S. sanctions that are already on the books?
Rademaker:
Well, it should because, essentially what the six UN Security Council resolutions that will be reinstituted, require all countries in the world to impose sanctions measures against Iran. And so, I commented earlier that the Europeans, who have not had sanctions on Iran since 2015, will now have to reinstitute their sanctions, at least to the degree that they were mandated by those six UN Security Council resolutions. The same is true of every other country in the world, and so trading partners and potential trading partners of Iran will need to, they will be required, under international law, to adopt domestic restrictions on restricted forms of commerce with Iran. I don’t think this is going to be, you know, the death nail of the Iranian economy, but I do think it will certainly have a negative impact on the Iranian economy, and they’re facing those shortage of problems already. They will face even more problems after this happens.
So, you know, it turns Iran into much more of a pariah than it’s been since 2015. Since 2015, they’ve been able to say “we’re in the pathway to rehabilitation as a legitimate member of the international community in good standing.” After snapback, they’re no longer, as a legal matter, a member of the international community in good standing, because they will be under all sorts of UN Security Council imposed restrictions.
Misztal:
Do we think that’s going to make a difference for the Chinese, for example, or the Russians doing business with Iran?
Rademaker:
I think those countries that now consider themselves allies of Iran … will be defying international law in doing it, but I think they probably value their relationship. You know, … Russia and China probably value their relationship with Iran more highly than they do compliance with international law.
But what does the UAE do? The Saudis, the Qataris? I think they need to be a little bit more careful, and I think even the Chinese are. I don’t know where the Arab countries will come down on this. They’ve been kind of on a more conciliatory path toward Iran in the last year or two, but there was a time when the Saudis were trying to make the Chinese choose between their relationship with Saudi Arabia and their relationship with Iran. So this could lay the groundwork for things to go back in that direction.
Edelman:
Steve, I think you’re aware that the Russians have raised a lot of questions about what they claim the legality of what the E3 are doing. And my suspicion is that that is meant to create a kind of miasma of confusion about whether snapback is, you know, was done properly, and whether it’s legal or not, and that they will probably, and I would suspect the Chinese will take the same position, try to maintain that somehow whatever they’re doing in violation of UN Security Council sanctions is legal because the snapback was done illegally, inappropriately, or what have you.
Rademaker:
Yeah. I mean, you’re absolutely right. I mean, the Iranians … they’ve already declared this action illegal. I’m trying to understand what their legal, what their argument is. And I mean, the only explanation I’ve read is that, you know, because the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA, that that’s somehow contaminated, killed the snapback, mechanism at the UN. I mean, pretty flimsy argument, if that’s all there is to it.
But there’s no surprise here. I mean, no country, I’ve never seen a country sort of publicly admit, “yes, we’re violating international law, and we don’t care.” They always concoct some argument, no matter how weak, about why they’re actually justified, why what they’re doing is not a violation of international law. It often is a completely laughable explanation, justification, and I think that’s probably what we’re going to face here.
Misztal:
Maybe sort of last question to try to wrap this up a bit, but if snapback does happen, then what? What are sort of the next steps for the E3? For the U.S.? For the Iranians? Is it just sort of a sit back and watch the sanctions work and hopefully increase pressure on the Iranians? Is there a strategy beyond that?
Rademaker:
First of all, since Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, there’s been a lot of daylight between the United States and Europe on Iran policy, and hopefully with snapback and with the reimposition of European sanctions on Iran, … the amount of daylight will substantially diminish. So, you know, it will be more of a collective effort to pressure Iran going forward than it’s been since 2018.
But, fundamentally, what snapback does is restore the status quo ante that existed before the JCPOA. So it was in that status quo that the JCPOA was negotiated. The fundamental deal that gave rise to the JCPOA, that the JCPOA rested on, was sanctions relief in exchange for limitations on the nuclear program. And, you know, I was among those who thought that we’d cut a bad deal, that, you know, we gave a lot of sanctions relief and didn’t get a lot of restrictions. So, I thought it was a bad deal, and so I supported the idea of trying to renegotiate it, which was the initial Trump policy and then became the Biden policy. And of course, [it] didn’t succeed. The Iranians didn’t want to renegotiate, but it was possible on the basis of the UN sanctions and the economic pain that Iran was experiencing leading up to 2015, to negotiate the JCPOA.
So, there’s no reason that the reimposition of those sanctions should be the death nail of diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to curtail its nuclear program. It was those sanctions that gave rise to the JCPOA. Maybe with a better negotiator, we can get a better deal this time around.
Edelman:
The only thing I would add to what Steve just said is [that] I don’t see actually a strategy on part of anybody right now, whether it’s the EU3, the U.S. or Iran, for what comes next after snapback, honestly. And [it] would probably be a good idea for someone in the administration to actually start thinking about that. The problem, I think, first of all, is, you know, these sanctions, as Steve was saying earlier, they’re not self-executing. And so there will have to be some mechanism.
I mean, I do think that the Russians and the Chinese both will probably get in the way of trying to recreate the panel of experts who were monitoring this. So it may be that the U.S. has to bring back some of the things that Steve and I were involved in in our misspent youth in government. You know, like the Proliferation Security Initiative efforts like that, to actually, you know, enforce these proliferation sanctions with the use of military instruments. But that takes planning, and that takes, you know, a strategy, et cetera.
Similarly, with negotiations, you have to have a strategy if you want to use these sanctions. I guess it was, I’m not sure Blaise [if] it was you or Jonathan who was talking about the difficult circumstances Iran finds itself in. I mean, its economy was already in terrible shape, the water shortages, fuel shortages, all of which are coming on top of a population that has been restive for the last decade or so, as it was.
But in order to turn that into effective leverage, you do have to have a strategy. You have to have a sense of what it is you want to accomplish. You have to have a sense of what your negotiating red lines are and which ones you will not actually concede.
That was a problem in the negotiation of the JCPOA, which was there was a serial retreat, and frankly, I’m sorry to say, it was under both the Bush and the Obama administrations. [There was a] serial retreat from standards, for instance, of no enrichment at all that then became some small amount of enrichment, then ended up with the JCPOA, with a kind of industrial scale enrichment that was blessed by the agreement. I mean, you’ve already had an indication with the Trump administration’s negotiation of a little bit of a problem with this very issue, right? Because there were first reports that Steve Witkoff had agreed to some small level of enrichment on the part, or, you know, a symbolic level of enrichment on the part of the Iranians, and that was apparently countermanded by President Trump.
But I don’t know that we know exactly what the administration’s ultimate negotiating position is here, and then, of course, has to be coordinated with allies. So, there’s a lot that I think, right now, is a little bit inchoate that needs to be given some greater form.
Ruhe:
I would just stand on the shoulders of what my fellow panelists have just said. You know, if there is a return to diplomacy or diplomatic maneuvering, you know about, about some better deal, and what the U.S. strategy for that should be—I know, I’m a broken record on this issue, we’ve been talking about it earlier in this panel—is, you know, given, you know, the fact that Iran’s capacity to enrich and to potentially produce a bomb has been dealt very likely, a severe setback from the war—you know, Iran’s calculus about moving forward on that is less a technical one and more a psychological one. The Iranians–do they worry they’ll be caught and punished again?
And so, as we’ve seen, you know, in a lot of the wrangling since the 12-day war, a big part of what Iran is doing is removing any of the remaining filaments of transparency. You know, the IAEA’s ability to track what Iran is doing, what its current capacity is, efforts to reconstitute and whatnot. We just saw reports in the last 24 hours that, you know, it looks like Iran has been sanitizing one of the weaponization sites that was targeted during the war, which we’ve seen them do it in the past as well.
So, you know, if there is going to be diplomacy going forward, I think a big priority there—it’s easy to look at the technical capacity, those are things that were big parameters in the JCPOA—but the absolute transparency from the Iranians is long overdue, even before the 12-day war and even before snapback.
Misztal:
Well, thank you all. Thank you, Ambassador Edelman, thank you Steve. Thank you, Jonathan, for your insights. Thank you to the audience for joining us.
Let me again commend to your paper The Path to Snapback for fully understanding that process and everything that entails. I’d also suggest looking at our paper Not Over Yet, about what happens now following the end of Operation Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer and the need to keep military options open and available even as we potentially go down the diplomatic track with Iran. You can find both of those on our website, jinsa.org, but thank you for tuning in and look forward to seeing you on the next webinar. Thank you, everybody. Have a good afternoon.