(New York Times) John R. Bolton - If Iran is caught transgressing, President Obama's plan is to apply "snapback sanctions." Yet in two provisions of the deal (Paragraphs 26 and 37), Iran rejects the legitimacy of sanctions coming back into force. "Iran has stated that if sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA." Thus the pattern will not be: Iran violates the deal; sanctions snap back; Iran resumes compliance. Quite the reverse. The far more likely future is: Iran violates the deal; sanctions snap back; Iran tells us to take our deal and stuff it - but only after Iran had reaped the economic benefits of having its assets unfrozen and the sanctions ended. The writer, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was the U.S. ambassador to the UN (2005-2006).
2015-08-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive