US Fails Utterly In Friday Night UN Security Council Vote On Extending Iran Arms Embargo

The US bid to extend a UN Security Council total arms embargo on Iran which had been in effect for 13 years, but which is set to drop this fall as part of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA), has ended in utter failure late this week.

As The Hill reported of the vote Friday night, the resolution didn’t even come close to gaining the requisite nine “yes” votes which would have forced Russia or China to use their vetoes.

Officially, the final tally was 11 abstentions, two yes and two no votes. After all of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s lobbying through the summer to essentially make permanent an international arms blockade on the Islamic Republic the US had only two votes in favor: its own and that of the Dominican Republic.

All European members of the P5+1 nuclear deal as expected were abstentions. The vote began via remote means Thursday due to the pandemic with the results tallied and announced by late Friday.

Just before the Friday evening Security Council announcement of the resolution’s results, Pompeo voiced frustration, saying the council “failed today” in its mission. He previously said it was “nuts” to allow Iran to purchase and import weapons.

“The United Nations Security Council is charged with the responsibility of maintaining international peace and security. It failed today to uphold its fundamental mission set,” Pompeo said. 

“It rejected a reasonable resolution to extend the 13-year old arms embargo on Iran and paved the way for the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell conventional weapons without specific UN restrictions in place for the first time in over a decade,” he continued. “The Security Council’s failure to act decisively in defense of international peace and security is inexcusable.”

The Trump administration is still vowing that Iran will never be able to buy weapons again, but it will be fighting an uphill battle, relying on its own diplomatic pressures on other nations, including allies, to ensure that’s the case, also with threat of sanctions against international violators.