Israeli FM Calls on UN to Restore All Nuclear Sanctions on Iran

Says nations need to admit nuclear talks are failed

Saying the recent IAEA rebuke of Iran proved that diplomacy has failed, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is demanding Iran be referred to the UN Security Council, with an eye toward restoring every single sanction on them.

It’s not clear the rest of the world will go along with this, as the IAEA rebuke was about a single issue of past activity, and not a referendum on the state of the diplomatic process.

Lapid is hoping that one of the parties to the nuclear deal can bring the issue as a “snapback” sanctions proposal, since this is intended to prevent Russia or China from vetoing it, as they almost certainly would.

Lapid says Israel’s goal is to isolate Iran internationally, and that they are working with the US on this. It’s not clear that the US could try to facilitate the snapback sanctions, however, as they dishonored the deal and couldn’t really claim to be a party to it anymore.

Lapid’s calls to declare diplomacy failed and focus on sanctions is a popular position among Israeli officials, though several intelligence officials there have said that restoring the nuclear deal would be better than no deal at all, so even within Israel this anti-diplomacy stance is not universal.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.