Iran Press/ America: The US move comes as other members of the security council are set to ignore the motion effectively.
It is the latest move in the 'maximum pressure' campaign against Tehran -- one that has left the US primarily isolated. It comes after the administration failed to extend the conventional weapons embargo set to expire next month under the Iran nuclear deal.
Experts told CNN that this unilateral effort -- which comes less than two months before the presidential election -- is unlikely to have an impact on arms sales on its own. Some say the move further alienates the US from its E3 allies -- Germany, France, and the United Kingdom -- and serves to undercut further the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear agreement.
Although the US withdrew from that deal in 2018, administration officials have argued they have the legal authority to trigger the sanctions that were lifted as part of the agreement.
Special Representative for Iran, Elliott Abrams told reporters this week, which would come at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, "virtually all UN sanctions on Iran will come back into place."
"We expect every nation to comply with UN Security Council resolutions -- period, full stop," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday. "And the United States is intent on enforcing all the UN Security Council resolutions. And come Monday, there will be a new series of UN Security Council resolutions that we enforce, and we intend to ask every country to stand behind them."
But given that most countries have rebuffed the US' legal argument and are poised to ignore the snapback sanctions, "absolutely nothing will change," said Barbara Slavin, the director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
"It has no practical meaning, and in a sense, it just makes look ridiculous and more isolated, because we are running around screaming, you know, 'This is the case,' and the rest of the world is saying, 'No, it's not,' " she told CNN.
Slavin said: "This is more about the Trump administration trying to bury the JCPOA while it thinks it has the opportunity."
"I do think this is mostly at this point about inducing the collapse of the JCPOA, because I think the administration has realized at this point that that is really standing in the way of what they argue is their goal of putting enormous pressure on Iran, to the point where it comes back to the table and is willing to make a range of concessions on the demands that the United States has laid out," Brewer told CNN.
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