US sees embarrassing UN defeat over Iran arms embargo proposal

Just one country joins US in vote, highlighting Washington’s isolation as it seeks more drastic action against Iran

Julian Borger in Washington
Sat 15 Aug 2020 00.21 BST
Last modified on Sat 15 Aug 2020 01.07 BST

The US has suffered a humiliating defeat at the United Nations as its proposal to extend an arms embargo on Iran won support from only the Dominican Republic at the security council vote.

The US resolution was never likely to be passed in the face of Russian and Chinese opposition. It was proposed as a ploy by the Trump administration to open the way to more drastic action against Iran.

But the scale of the defeat on Friday underlined US isolation on the world stage ahead of a major diplomatic confrontation that threatens to consume the security council and further sap its authority.

The US stripped anti-Iran rhetoric from earlier drafts of the resolution in the hope of recruiting more supporters, but its insistence that an extension to the UN embargo would be indefinite made that impossible. Estonia and Tunisia withstood eleventh-hour US pressure to support the revised draft, a measure of diminished American clout at the UN. Russia and China voted against the resolution, the US and the Dominican Republic voted in favour, and all the other council members abstained.

In his response to the vote, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, lashed out at other member states.

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