This totally pulls the rug from underneath Obama’s meme that sanctions can be re-enacted if Iran is found to be (already has) not in compliance with the nuke treaty.
European governments, companies already willing to invest in Iran, undermining any chance of snapback in future
European governments are already showing a willingness to lift sanctions against Iran and invest in the country, before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has even been implemented.
On Thursday, the Swiss government announced that it was lifting some sanctions. It stated that the sanctions lifting “can be seen as a sign of the support for the implementation of the nuclear agreement and its interest in deepening bilateral relations with Iran.” Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni led a business delegation to Tehran earlier this week. During the trip, Italian investment bank Mediobanca signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran’s Economy Ministry and the Central Bank of Iran, stating that the purpose was “to facilitate future economic and commercial relations between the two countries.”
An Italian industrial firm, Finmeccanica, signed a €500 million contract with the Iranian firm Ghadir Investment Co. to develop a power plant – in 2013, the Treasury Department referred to the latter as “a major network of front companies controlled by Iran’s leadership.” The Wall Street Journal quotes Emanuele Ottolenghi, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), as saying, “The plant deal, inked well before the [nuclear] deal even begins to be implemented, shows that U.S. sanctions can no longer deter global business from signing huge deals in Iran, even with the Supreme Leader’s business empire.”
