After years of complacency and ongoing trade with Iran, France, the UK, and Germany triggered a mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal that will reimpose international sanctions on Iran starting in October.
I can almost hear President Macron (aka “Little Cooke”), Britain’s Kair Starmer and German Chancellor Merz spitballing over tea about how they can get back onto the frontpages from which President Trump has so thoroughly exiled them for the past eight months.
The reimposition — or “snapback” — of international sanctions was envisaged in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to punish Iran for violating the agreement.
The Euros — and the Russians and the Chinese — should have invoked the snapback clause in 2018 when the United States pulled out of the agreement during Trump’s first term because of Iran’s ongoing violations.
But of course, they didn’t.
Now is their last chance — both for reimposing the sanctions and for achieving some modicum of international relevance.
The snapback clause expires on October 1, ten years after the original Iran nuclear deal. And it requires a thirty-day window to take effect.
Guess what happens on October 1? Russia assumes the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council.
And guess what the Russians will do if the Euros wait until then to invoke snapback? Parbleu! The Euros will look like a desert soufflé the day after it was supposed to be eaten.
The Euros have historically been limp on Iran.
I used to track international trade with Iran in the 1990s for my confidential newsletter, Middle East Defense News. The Euros always topped Russia and China and everyone else for providing Iran with dual-use technology.
They were, after all, export-driven economies, unlike the United States at the time.
For nearly four decades the Europeans have provided sophisticated numerically-controlled machine-tools for Iran’s weapons industry, a broad array of equipment that could be used for the production of chemical and biological weapons, and speciality steel and much more for uranium enrichment centrifuges.
Yes, China provided the blueprints for the uranium conversion (UF6) facility. Russia and North Korea provided ballistic missile design expertise. And Pakistan provided the first uranium enrichment centrifuges, thanks to AQ Khan.
If you’d like to know exactly how Iran built up a full-fledged nuclear weapons industrial complex, read my book Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran. I go contract by contract, facility by facility.
And the Euros in particular did nothing to stop it, because they were making out like gangbusters on the trade.
So bravo Little Cookie, Starmer and Merz. Now you can pose for the cameras and claim international relevance, after decades of sitting back and enabling a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.
After all, there was no reason to act when Iran actually had nuclear weapons capabilities, since the publicly-avowed goal of the Iranian regime was merely to to eradicate the state of Israel and to destroy America.
But now is a good time, since Israel and the United States have done the heavy lifting.
The Iranians can continue to count on Putin, who will soon meet with President Xi and Prime Minister Modi of India to discuss how to counter-act the 50% tariffs Trump has said he will impose on the major buyers of Russian oil.
So far, Trump has played nice, even hosting Putin to that summit in Alaska.
Somehow, I don’t think Putin’s response — refusing to meet with Zelenskyy, and stepped up missile and drone attacks on Kiev — will get Trump warm and fuzzy.
So stand by for the next move from the White House. Remember, geopolitics is chess, not checkers.
I discuss all of this on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.
As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday in the Jacksonville, Florida area on 104.9 FM or 550 AM or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. Later you can listen to the podcast here.
Yours in freedom.
©2025 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.
Visit: www.kentimmerman.com
Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here.
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Author: Kenneth R. Timmerman
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