Sen. Cruz: Iran Committed an Act of War, U.S. Should Act to Re-Impose U.N. Sanctions
Calls grow for use of the U.N. snapback mechanism, including new WSJ editorial and analysis by top national security experts
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, Britain, France, and Germany released a statement blaming Iran for the recent attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. The acknowledgment came despite a campaign of denial aimed at preserving the catastrophic Obama-Iran nuclear deal.
As U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly urged, the U.S. should invoke the snapback mechanism in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 and restore U.N. sanctions against the Ayatollahs.
Following the announcement, Sen. Cruz said:
“This announcement by our European partners confirms what those of us who had directly seen the evidence always knew: Iran committed an act of war aimed at harming our economy and thwarting President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against its regime. […] They arrived at the same conclusion, despite the best efforts of the Iran echo chamber, which orchestrated a media campaign of denial as part of their effort to preserve the catastrophic Obama Iran nuclear deal at all costs.
He added:
“Now it is time to tear up that deal once and for all by invoking the snapback mechanism in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 and restoring U.N. sanctions against the Ayatollahs.”
As the Wall Street Journal editorial board reinforced earlier this week:
“Europe’s turn is vindication for Mr. Trump and his ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions campaign to address the serious faults in the 2015 accord. […]
“Europe can help here by joining the U.S. in supporting tougher sanctions if Iran breaks out further from the 2015 accord. Working through the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. can trigger so-called snap-back sanctions if Iran violates its nuclear limits. A united U.S.-Europe stance on snapping back would put further pressure on Iran to renegotiate.”
And as former assistant secretary of state Stephen Rademaker wrote yesterday:
“Reimposing the terminated U.N. Security Council resolutions would offer many benefits from the administration’s perspective. The U.S. policy of ‘maximum pressure’ would be backed up by multilateral, U.N.-imposed sanctions. The scope for international resistance to U.S. policy—under the European Union’s ‘blocking statute,’ for example—would be narrowed. Important JCPOA benefits Iran has been counting on—such as expiration of the U.N. arms embargo in October 2020—would vanish. […] The baseline would no longer be the JCPOA, which conceded Iran’s right to operate uranium-enrichment and ballistic-missile programs, but previous U.N. resolutions that prohibited Iran from operating such programs.”
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