The "Snap Back" Delusion

“Snap back.” That’s the term used by officials in Washington to describe an automatic re-imposition of multilateral sanctions on Iran if it violates a deal with the United States to scale backs its nuclear weapons program.

“We will retain the ability to snap back multilateral sanctions architecture back in place, without Russian or Chinese support,” Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said earlier this week to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

She says she can’t explain how this would work, exactly, but Russia and China aren’t the only potential obstacles we need to worry about.

The World National Oil Companies Congress conducted a full-day briefing in London this week about the massive amounts of money that can be made in Iran after sanctions are lifted.

“The fact that the whole sanctions structure is weakened is true,” Ellham Hassanzadeh said to Sohrab Ahmari at the Wall Street Journal. “Everybody’s just ready that once it really crumbles to go back to the country and put down the money.”

Chevron was there. Siemens was there. Big companies from Australia and Singapore were there, along with so many other.

And they’re all ready to “put down the money.”

What’s going to happen if, a year or so later, Iran says to hell with it and starts cheating? Sanctions can only “snap back” into place if the nations imposing the sanctions are willing to admit that Iran has been cheating and are willing to act accordingly. Is that really going to happen after gigantic companies from all over the world have invested hundreds of millions—perhaps even billions—of dollars?

Chevron won’t be in charge of what happens, nor will any other multinational corporation, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think government officials won’t flinch at the thought of flushing that kind of cash down the toilet.

Forget the conspiracy theories about corporations running the world. Governments run the world. But nearly all governments outside communist and quasi-communist countries like North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela take their nation’s economic health into account. They have to, especially if they’re democratically elected and are held accountable by their citizens and financial backers.

It’s hardly a stretch to suggest that policymakers might get a little weak in the knees when it’s crunch time. There’s no need to be cynical about it. We’re all capable of lying to ourselves, especially when our paychecks and livelihoods depend on it.

Would you acknowledge that Iran is cheating if it obligated you to set your house on fire? Your mind would innocently twist itself into all kinds of contortions before admitting that, yeah, it’s time to pour a gallon gasoline onto the living room floor and drop a lit match.

The West’s will is already sapped even without billions of dollars in cash on the table. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the State Department is three years behind its own Iranian sanctions implementation.

“Our analysis,” reads the report, “demonstrates that State is falling further and further behind in providing the reports and is now juggling a backlog of draft reports at different stages of that process. The imposition of sanctions no sooner than 3 or more years after the transfer occurred may diminish the credibility of the threatened sanction.”

We haven’t even reached the point yet where money is on the table.

Last week a panel of United Nations monitors released a report complaining that both the US and Europe have been deliberately ignoring Iranian sanctions violations.

“The current situation with reporting,” the report says, “could reflect a general reduction of procurement activities by the Iranian side or a political decision by some member states to refrain from reporting to avoid a possible negative impact on ongoing negotiations.”

It’s not just the United States that isn’t reporting Iranian misbehavior to the United Nations. No country is reporting Iranian misbehavior to the United Nations, not even misbehavior that’s unfolding, as Sangwon Yoon put it in Bloomberg, in plain sight.

“There’s a direct correlation between this administration not wanting to sanction anyone or any violation and their lack of reporting on those violations,” said US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. “And it’s sending a signal to the international community that the United States is not serious about any of our sanctions, that if you talk to the right folks at certain agencies and get a pass.”

Is any of this going to change after the sanctions are lifted? No one can know for sure, but the real question is, why would it?