The Snapback Trap is One Reason to Nix the Iran Deal

In an appearance on NPR, sanctions guru Mark Dubowitz explained that the mechanism in the Iran deal designed to stop Iran from cheating — the “snapback” — actually provides cover for Iran to cheat. The report went like this:

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MARK DUBOWITZ: Iran actually has its own snapback. It has a nuclear snapback.

MICHELE KELEMEN: That’s Mark Dubowitz, a sanctions expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has been campaigning against what it calls a flawed deal. The text states clearly that if sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran would treat that as grounds to stop performing its commitments in whole or in part. And Dubowitz thinks this will make the U.S. and Europe hesitate before bringing any concerns to the Security Council.

DUBOWITZ: The only thing you’ll take to the Security Council are massive Iranian violations because you’re certainly not going to risk the Iranians walking away from the deal and engaging in nuclear escalation over smaller violations. . . . And it will be very difficult to convince European companies to leave Iran again. It took decades to convince the Europeans to leave the first time. And that was in a context where Iran was under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and was considered an international pariah. In five, 10, 15 years, circumstances may change significantly, and we may never be able to get the Europeans back out of Iran.

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Read the full article here.