Dominic Green Dominic Green

Mike Pompeo: ‘I regret’ Britain’s Iran sanctions vote

Why is Boris Johnson going against America once again?

Picture by Pippa Fowles / No. 10 Downing Street

The halls of the UN are a habitual stage for empty gestures and vaporous rhetoric, but last Friday’s Security Council vote was a dangerous theatre of the absurd – and one in which two American allies played ignominious supporting roles.

The Council not only rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to extend Resolution 2231, which restricts conventional arms sales to the rogue regime in Iran. Britain and France both abstained.

Why are Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron signalling that the pressure is off, the coast is clear, and the mullahs are free to arm themselves with the kind of advanced Chinese and Russian weaponry that would alter the balance of power in Asia and the Middle East – an alteration that would come at the expense of the European powers as well as the United States?

When I spoke with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday afternoon, he was preparing to go once more unto the diplomatic breach on Thursday, to again request the extension of Resolution 2231. He sounded determined: ‘The whole world has signed up for UN Security Council Resolution 2231, and I have no reason to expect that the whole world won’t honour their commitments to the United Nations.’

The British government literally cannot afford to insult its closest ally

Pompeo also sounded candidly disappointed with ‘freedom-loving’ Britain in particular: ‘You know, I regret it… We need nations to step up and do the right thing, whether that’s the United Kingdom or the French, the Germans, or others.’

The problem is not principled opposition, but a lack of conviction. Friendly governments, Pompeo says, are failing to match their actions to their principles and interests: ‘Many nations tell me privately that they understand the necessity of the arms embargo continuing to be extended.’

We can presume these diplomatic double-speakers also understand the necessity of reviving economies hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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