Iran on Huge of Collapse as UN Sanctions under
US and Europe Presssure Hit Economy even as there is no evidence Nuclear
Missile
Already suffering a 40 percent inflation
rate and critical shortages of power and water, many in Iran expect conditions to
get worse.
U.N. Snapback
Sanctions on Iran (Sept 2025)
Why now?
·
On Sept. 28, 2025, the U.N. Security Council
reimposed wide-ranging sanctions on Iran, using the snapback mechanism in
the 2015 nuclear deal.
·
Triggered by Britain, France, and Germany, citing
Iran’s:
o
Enrichment up to 60% (vs. 3.5% allowed),
o
Stockpile of 400 kg of highly enriched uranium,
o
Denial of access to IAEA inspectors after June
airstrikes.
·
Deadline was October, but Europeans moved it forward.
·
Russia and China opposed the measure, but the vote passed
with support from 9 Council members.
What do the
sanctions include?
·
Ban on uranium enrichment at any level.
·
Arms embargo reinstated.
·
Ballistic missile restrictions (no nuclear-capable
missile development).
·
Travel bans & asset freezes on Iranian
individuals/entities.
·
Cargo inspections of Iranian
vessels and oil tankers.
·
Ban on transfer of missile technology.
Iran’s Response
·
President Masoud Pezeshkian called sanctions
“unjust and illegal”.
·
Recalled ambassadors from Britain, France, Germany.
·
Dismissed calls to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
·
Claimed Iran is still open to inspectors and negotiations,
but rejected U.S. demand to hand over its entire 400 kg stockpile in exchange
for a temporary suspension.
·
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Europe
of “abuse of process” and violating the deal themselves after the U.S. exit in 2018.
Economic Fallout
·
Iran already faces:
o
40% inflation,
o
Currency devaluation (rial fell 4% vs. dollar on black
market),
o
Energy and water shortages,
o
Post-war reconstruction costs from the June 2025
conflict with Israel.
·
New sanctions will worsen:
o
Access to banking, shipping, and insurance,
o
Ability to import goods and technology,
o
Pressure on small & medium enterprises (90%
of industry, ~50% of jobs).
·
Businesses expect demand decline and rising unemployment.
Geopolitical
Dynamics
·
Russia and China: reject legitimacy of sanctions,
likely to keep trading with Iran.
o
Russia relies on Iranian drones for the Ukraine war.
o
China remains Iran’s main oil buyer, helping soften
the blow.
·
U.S. stance: Secretary of State Marco Rubio
said sanctions show Tehran will be held accountable.
·
Europe’s view: insists sanctions necessary to curb
nuclear escalation; warned Iran risks losing E.U. trade permanently.
Bigger Picture
·
Sanctions arrive as Iran’s domestic discontent grows—with
power cuts, unemployment, and poverty fueling frustration.
·
Hard-liners call for defiance and greater self-reliance,
while moderates warn of worsening isolation.
·
Risks:
o
Collapse of nuclear diplomacy,
o
Iran’s potential drift away from the NPT,
o
Escalation toward another regional confrontation.
Bottom line: The snapback
sanctions compound Iran’s economic crisis and deepen East-West divides. While Russia
and China may cushion the impact, ordinary Iranians face harsher living conditions,
and Tehran’s nuclear future is more uncertain than ever.
Iran’s economic
situation, already dire with water and power shortages, staggering budget deficits
and a devalued currency, is now expected to deteriorate even further.
On Saturday, the
United Nations Security Council reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear
program, after the failure of a diplomatic marathon on the sidelines of the General
Assembly.
The U.N. sanctions
are more sweeping than the current American sanctions against Iran. They stem from
a dispute between Europe and Tehran over adherence to the 2015 nuclear accord with
world powers, and Iran’s decision to bar international inspectors from its nuclear
sites after strikes by Israel and the United States in June.
Secretary of State
Marco Rubio confirmed that the U.N. sanctions had gone into effect. He said in a
statement that the decision to restore the restrictions sent a clear message: “The
world will not acquiesce to threats and half measures — and Tehran will be held
to account.”
The new sanctions
freeze assets and ban travel for a range of Iranian entities and individuals, and
authorize countries to stop and inspect cargo traveling from Iran by air and sea
on Iranian government vessels, including oil tankers.
The sanctions prohibit
Iran from enriching uranium at any level, launching ballistic missiles with nuclear
warhead capability and transferring technical knowledge of its ballistic missiles.
They also reinstate an arms embargo.
Iran’s president,
Masoud Pezeshkian, called the sanctions “unjust and illegal.”
“They want to topple
us,” he said in a briefing with reporters on Friday in New York. “If you were in
our place, what would you do?”
Iran has not said
how or whether it would retaliate.
Mr. Pezeshkian said
a decision would be made after he returned to Iran and conferred with other officials.
On Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry recalled its ambassadors to Britain, France
and Germany to Tehran for consultations.
Mohammad Bagher
Ghalibaf, Iran’s speaker of Parliament and a hard-liner close to the supreme leader,
said on Sunday that Iran still had the right to enrich uranium under international
law.
Hard-line factions
in Iran have called for retaliation by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a move that would raise alarm because
it would remove guardrails on Iran’s treaty obligations. Mr. Pezeshkian, a moderate,
dismissed such talk, saying it was not an option.
The sanctions hit
Iran at a particularly difficult time.
The country is still
reeling from a 12-day war with Israel in June, which drew in the United States when
it struck three of Iran’s nuclear sites.
The Iranian government
has also been grappling with an acute energy and water crisis, leading to mandatory
cuts in power and water supplies in many cities.
Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst for the International
Crisis Group, said the U.N. sanctions “compound the already significant strain on
Iran’s economy.”
The 2015 deal to
curb Iran’s nuclear program relieved the country from U.N. Security Council sanctions
passed from 2006 to 2010. The nuclear deal allowed those sanctions to be reimposed,
using the so-called snapback mechanism, if Iran violated the terms of the deal by
the end of October 2025.
If the deadline
passed with no action, the provision would automatically expire and the sanctions
would lapse.
But in August, Britain,
France and Germany triggered the mechanism and moved the deadline up to Sept. 28.
Europe accused Tehran
of violating the 2015 agreement by enriching uranium up to 60 percent from 3.5 percent
and accumulating a stockpile of 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which
could allow Iran to build several nuclear bombs if it chose to weaponize its program.
Iran was also accused of violating it by not allowing international inspectors after
the airstrikes.
Iranian officials
maintain their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. They say they accelerated
uranium enrichment only because the United States unilaterally exited the nuclear
accord in 2018 under President Trump, who called it “a horrible one-sided deal,”
even though Iran was in full compliance.
To comply with U.S.
sanctions, the Europeans ended trade with Iran. Iranian officials say that by doing
so, European powers effectively violated their end of the deal.
In a letter to the
U.N. secretary general, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the argument
by the three European powers was “legally flawed” and had demanded “arrangements
beyond its scope.” He called the invocation of snapback sanctions a “clear abuse
of process.”
“Attempts to revive
terminated resolutions are not only legally baseless but also politically and morally
unjustified,” he wrote.
Mr. Pezeshkian reiterated
that Iran did not plan to pursue a nuclear weapon and expressed surprise that the
world did not believe it.
The Europeans also
criticized Tehran’s decision after the June war to suspend cooperation with the
International Atomic Energy Agency by denying its inspectors access to Iran’s nuclear
sites.
Mr. Araghchi argued
in his letter that European statements at the time of the U.S. and Israeli strikes
had “justified military attacks against Iran’s IAEA-safeguarded facilities.”
Europe had laid
out three conditions for Iran to avoid the new sanctions: to provide immediate access
for the outside inspectors; to give the location of the 400-kilogram stockpile of
highly enriched uranium; and to open direct nuclear negotiations with the United
States.
Mr. Pezeshkian said
in a briefing and in comments to Iranian news media on Saturday that Iran had conceded
to negotiations and to giving access to inspectors.
But he said the
United States had demanded that Iran turn out all of its 400-kilogram stockpile
in exchange for a three-month suspension of snapback sanctions, a condition that
Mr. Pezeshkian called unreasonable.
Russia and China,
Iran’s two main allies and permanent members of the Security Council, tried on Friday
to delay the sanctions by six months. But the measure was defeated, with nine countries
opposed, including Britain, France and the United States.
Russia and China
have already said they do not consider the snapback measure legitimate and are likely
to soften the effects of the sanctions by continuing to trade with Iran. Russia
and Iran have close military ties, with Iran selling Russia drones it uses in the
war in Ukraine.
China is the main
client for Iran’s oil sales, helping the government stay economically afloat.
Some Iranian political
figures downplayed the impact of the snapback sanctions, saying the country was
already managing under the current sanctions and would find ways to cope with the
new ones. They placed blame on the West, saying that Europe and Washington were
never seriously interested in reaching a new agreement.
“The only way is
to become strong to a level that erases the idea of Iran surrendering to the enemy,”
said Mahdi Mohammadi, a conservative senior adviser to the head of Iran’s Parliament
said in a social media post.
Nevertheless, Iran’s
economy has tanked in recent years, suffering not just from the American sanctions
but from chronic mismanagement and corruption as well.
On Saturday, the
rial dropped 4 percent against the dollar in the black market, which is the commonly
accepted rate and the marker for inflation.
For ordinary Iranians,
the news hit hard.
They were already
struggling with more than 40 percent inflation, rising unemployment and uncertainty
about the direction of the country. Many fear a return to war with Israel and the
United States.
Mehdi Bostanchi,
the head of Iran’s Council of Industries, said in an interview from Tehran that
businesses and industries were bracing for a decline in demand and expected more
hurdles in procuring goods from abroad and more restrictions on insurance, banking
and shipping.
“The greatest pressure
will be on small and medium-size enterprises, he said, “which account for over 90
percent of Iran’s industrial units and about half of industrial employment.”