Iran regime celebrates 'heavy defeat' for US over arms embargo

A  major setback for the US at the United Nations, in which an arms embargo on Iran was not extended, is being celebrated by the Iranian regime as a “heavy defeat” for Washington.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called it a humiliating defeat and noted that only the Dominican Republic had supported the US, while other countries abstained or opposed it.

This is a boost for Iran’s overall narrative as it faces two setbacks of its own. Iran has had to deal with its own humiliation on the high seas as the US said it had stopped Iranian gasoline shipments aboard four ships heading for Venezuela. Also, the UAE and Israel are moving toward bilateral relations. So after Iran appeared to have setbacks, it’s good news for the regime to have what seems like a major win at the UN.

While US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft said the failure to extend the arms embargo will not serve peace, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised several Gulf countries for supporting the US.

But Iran knows the real story here is that it appeared to have support from a whole swath of the world, including key powers like Russia and China. In addition the UK, France and Germany remain committed to the Iran Deal that the US walked away from in 2018.

China is one of the more outspoken nations regarding the US failure at the UN. UN Ambassador Zhang Jun has said that the US is ineligible to demand snapback sanctions relating to the Iran deal because it walked away from the 2015 agreement.

While Russia has posed as being open to some compromise and some European countries also would like one, it appears Iran not only got what it wants but that China’s own dispute with the Trump administration has led Beijing to use incidents like this to humiliate the US in international forums.

The message from Tehran, which also dovetails with messaging from Moscow and elsewhere, is that the US is isolated and that it is Beijing, Moscow and Tehran that appear more responsible.

Iran’s Mehr News Agency says that the vote has “broken” the US use of unilateralism and shows a combination of states will either side with Iran or against the US. The article argues that the neoliberal approach to world affairs embraced multilateralism and large organizations, such as the IMF, World Bank and free trade.

It argues that US President Donald Trump is against this neoliberal approach and has pushed for an “America first” policy in which the US will stop paying a high price for maintaining the liberal world order. America is no longer the dominant power, imposing demands, the article asserts. The world has more anarchy now.

The failure at the UN was largely known before. The US entered the attempt to push for an embargo extension without the votes.

Nevertheless Pompeo and other US officials say that the US will move forward anyway. This is why China and others are concerned the US might now pursue snapback sanctions relating to the Iran deal. The US already has tough sanctions on Iran, which now feels it has the upper hand globally. However it must move carefully, because it doesn’t want to be seen as a provocative outlaw regime.

Iran this year downed a civilian jetliner and last year it was behind an attack on an Aramco plant in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia as well as mining six ships in the Gulf of Oman. In addition, the US has intercepted three Iranian boats with weapons shipments to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Despite these incidents, which seem to go against international law, Iran knows that most countries do not want to confront it, instead they want to work with it. For instance China, Iran and Russia held a joint naval drill last year.

The consensus in global media is that the UN decision was a defeat for the US. Russia has sought to now maneuver the UN Security Council to listen to its proposals. Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, has said that Russia believes “there is an alternative to threats and blackmail, confrontation and coercion.” Russia will now push a “multilateral approach” and seek to increase its clout after the defeat of the US desire for an arms embargo extension.