Department of Wonders-Never-Cease: UN Reimposes Sanctions on Iran

This time, the UN took time out from its busy schedule of maligning Israel and giving thumbs-up for the “state of Palestine” — a morale booster for the terror group Hamas — in order to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic for continuing to rebuild its nuclear program, which the IDF and the American military so badly damaged last June. More on the reimposition of sanctions on Iran, its economy already in free fall, can be found here: “UN Arms Embargo, Other Sanctions Reimposed on Iran Over Nuclear Program,” Algemeiner, September 28, 2025:

The United Nations has reinstated an arms embargo and other sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program following a process triggered by European powers that Tehran has warned will be met with a harsh response.

What exactly is that “harsh response” Iran could deliver? Its store of ballistic missiles has been greatly reduced by the one-two punch the country received from Israel and the United States in June. In the same attacks, the nuclear facilities across Iran have been heavily damaged. The IDF has largely dismantled two of its formerly formidable proxies — Hamas and Hezbollah. A third proxy, Assad’s Syria, is now under new, Sunni management that regards Iran as an archenemy; the IDF, not taking any chances, has bombed to smithereens almost all the weaponry the Assad regime left behind. Only the fourth Iranian proxy, the Houthis in Yemen, occasionally lob a drone at Israel’s Red Sea resort at Eilat, that does some damage and wounds a few Israelis. Such attacks are responded to by the IDF, which inflict damage that is many times more devastating than the Houthi attack that provoked it. Iran has nothing that the rest of the world buys except oil, and it has only one customer, China, that insists Iran sell its oil at an $11 discount from the market price.

Iran’s currency, the riyal, is at an all-time low. When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, a dollar was worth 42,000 riyals. Now a dollar is worth more than a million riyals. The RCRI and Iran Focus both claim that 80% of Iranians now live below the poverty line. Iran is now suffering from its worse drought in history, causing crops to fail and farm animals to die. Ten million residents of Tehran are said to be facing a permanent water shortage; the government has asked them to reduce their consumption of water by 25%.

Britain, France and Germany initiated the return of sanctions on Iran at the U.N. Security Council over accusations it had violated a 2015 deal that aimed to stop it developing a nuclear bomb. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons….

Ever since the 2015 deal was signed, Iran has ignored its commitment not to resume its nuclear program and has, instead, gone full steam ahead, all the while assuring the world that it would never “develop nuclear weapons.” If so, why has it kept the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency from visiting the very sites where they believe uranium enrichment is continuing? Why, if Iran wants uranium only for peaceful purposes, has it enriched uranium far above what is needed to produce atomic energy in a nuclear reactor, to a level of 60% purity, which is just one step below the weapons grade level of 90% purity? Iran has no answer for this; it simply keeps repeating that it has “no interest” in acquiring nuclear weapons, and hopes that if it repeats this absurdity enough times, someone will take that claim seriously.

Iran has still to explain what has happened to 400 kg. of uranium, enriched to a level of 60%, that are known to exist but is now unaccounted for. There are credible reports and intelligence suggesting Iran moved approximately 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity from its facilities before recent Israeli and U.S. strikes in June 2025, though its current location is unknown. The IAEA last saw the material a week before the attacks, and Iran has not revealed its whereabouts, making the fate of the highly enriched uranium a mystery and a concern for international. Iran’s refusal to account for those 400 kg. of uranium enriched to 60% purity is most worrisome. I doubt that the sanctions will cause Iran to hand over that uranium to the IAEA.

Those sanctions ought to curb the enthusiasm of Iran’s political echelon, especially the travel ban on many of the leaders, and freezes on their assets held abroad. And a ban on the supply of any material that could be used in the nuclear program will throw a spanner in the works — how disruptive that will be is still unclear — of Iran’s nuclear program, which was set back, according to Israeli experts knowledgeable about the extent of the damage caused by the IDF in the twelve-day war, by at least two years at a minimum. A lot can happen in Iran in two years, as public fury with the government may topple the regime, if the riyal remains in free fall and the rain in much of Iran fails to fall at all.