The United States must achieve the restoration of international sanctions against Iran, which will soon be able to buy weapons from Washington’s adversaries Russia and China, Texas Senator Ted Cruz said in an article, published in Newsweek on August 16.

According to him, of the many dangerous myths used to sell the catastrophic 2015 Obama-Biden Iran nuclear deal to the American people, the most pernicious was the idea that the deal was “just” about nuclear weapons.

“The deal was, in fact, far more significant in scope. Because of a ticking provision in the deal, Iran will soon be empowered to purchase billions of dollars of conventional weapons from countries like China and Russia. In fact, those arms sales are already in motion.” the US senator stressed.

Under the deal, the ayatollah accepted limited and temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. However, in return, UNSCR 2231 forever abolished all six previous UN Security Council resolutions against Iran that had been passed in response to the full range of Iran’s malign activities, including terrorism, ballistic missile development and its nuclear weapons program. Those concessions included the arms embargo, which was put on a five-year expiration clock.

Usually, the only way to reverse one UN Security Council resolution is by passing another one through normal procedures, which require that no permanent member—the U.S., Britain, France, Russia or China—veto the resolution. On Friday, the Trump administration tried exactly that, and presented a new resolution to extend the old arms embargo. China and Russia opposed. Our European allies refused to take sides.

Under USCR 2231, however, there is another way to reverse course on a deal that will soon deliver dangerous weapons into the hands of the ayatollah, through the so-called “snapback mechanism”.

“I have long called for invoking the snapback mechanism due to the threat posed by Iran. The necessity has never been more pressing”, Cruz pointed out, noting that without action, UNSCR 2231 will soon bulldoze what few speed bumps remain at the international level to slow down Iran’s “aggression” and eventually, as other sanctions expire, the full development and deployment of Iran’s nuclear program.

“President Trump and his administration did everything they could to avoid a showdown over the arms embargo, including mobilizing a coalition to advocate for last week’s resolution. The administration is now rightly moving to invoke the snapback mechanism.,” the senator said.

However, predictably, he laments, political opponents of the president, including the Iran echo chamber from the Obama years, are suddenly saying the U.S. has no right to use the very failsafe that the Obama administration included as part of the deal they cut.

Some say that Iran is not significantly violating the nuclear deal, or that it’s not their fault because the U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran. But Iran has admitted to violating the deal, those violations have been confirmed by the UN’s nuclear watchdog and regardless—as then-Secretary of State Kerry confirmed in writing to the Senate in 2015—the U.S. has “full discretion to determine what is and is not” a violation that triggers the snapback.

“Having exhausted every other measure to stop Iran from receiving billions of dollars of weapons starting in October, the Trump administration is going back to the UN to put an end to the benefits Iran is receiving from the Iran deal”, Cruz stressed.