Snapback sanctions on Iran expose the West's hypocrisy

THE reinstatement of UN sanctions on Iran this week, triggered by the “snapback” mechanism under the 2015 nuclear deal, is being sold to the world as a necessary step to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

- CHLOE MALULEKE

It is nothing of the sort. It is the latest act in a decades-long campaign to deny Iran its sovereign right to peaceful nuclear energy and to keep the Global South firmly in its place.

The new sanctions took effect after talks collapsed and following Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June.

They bar all dealings linked to Iran's nuclear and ballistic activities, reviving resolutions that had been suspended under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran has rightly denounced the measures as “legally baseless and unjustifiable,” warning that attempts to undermine its rights will face a “firm and appropriate response.”

President Masoud Pezeshkian called Washington's offer of a brief sanctions reprieve in exchange for Iran surrendering its entire stockpile of enriched uranium “unacceptable” and it is. What sovereign state would hand over its technological progress in exchange for the temporary easing of an economic chokehold?

Much of the Western world continues to speak as though Iran stands on the brink of building a nuclear bomb. It is a convenient fiction that sustains the logic of coercion.

The reality is very different. Iran remains a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has consistently allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into its facilities. Its enrichment levels, though increased since the collapse of the JCPOA, remain below the 90% threshold required for weapons-grade uranium. That simple fact is rarely acknowledged in Western capitals because it undermines the narrative of imminent threat on which sanctions policy depends.