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As the world descends into a second Cold War (with hot spots in Europe and the Middle East), the United Nations Security Council has grown ever more irrelevant as space for consensus shrinks. But the next six months will see a revival of the council’s relevancy as a deadline looms on the United Nations’ Iran sanctions. If the United States, the UK and Europe play their cards right, they can return permanent and painful restrictions on the Islamic Republic; but if America’s Western partners falter, Iran will enjoy freedom from UN restrictions – likely in perpetuity.

From 2006-2010, back when the Security Council regularly reached agreement, it passed six resolutions imposing punishing sanctions against Iran’s banks, weapons sales, nuclear and missile programmes, as well as travel bans against their top scientists and terrorists. But the 2015 nuclear deal was accompanied by a new UN Security Council resolution that repealed those permanent sanctions and replaced them with a weaker resolution that sunsetted the restrictions. And so in October 2020, the UN arms embargo and travel bans expired, while later in October 2023 the UN’s missile and drone embargoes came to an end.

If no action is taken in the Security Council by October 18 this year, all UN sanctions on Iran will expire permanently. If this happens, Russia and China would surely block any effort to impose new restrictions on their emerging ally.

Fortunately, the resolution included a procedural fail-safe known as “snap-back”. Any member of the 2015 nuclear deal, that is the US, the UK, Germany, France, Russia and China, could unilaterally reinstate the original UN restrictions.

The US attempted to snap back these sanctions in August 2020, while I served on the State Department’s Iran Action Group. However, the rest of the Security Council, including our British and European allies, objected to our legal right to use this mechanism since we had ceased participating in the nuclear deal two years prior. As a result, the rest of the Council claimed snap-back never happened and refused to implement those sanctions.

Over the subsequent five years, Iran sold thousands of missiles and drones to Russia, which now rain down on Ukrainian cities and civilians. This was funded in part by Iranian banks still freely operating on European and British soil, whose services remain legal because Europe and Britain allowed the sanctions to expire in a fateful betrayal of the US.

Since France, Britain and Germany decided they would not honour the US snap-back, those banks remain free to operate under international law. Today, the ball remains in Europe’s court to stand up to Iranian savagery on their continent and pursue snap-back themselves.

Snap-back only requires 30 days to take effect, but time is not on our side.

Since Russia and perhaps even China will object to an attempt to restore UN sanctions, a friendly referee in the form of the Security Council’s rotating presidency is vital to achieving an ideal outcome in the legal fight that will accompany the effort. That fight could last a week or two after the 30-day snap-back process.

This April and May, France and Greece will helm the Council; afterwards the presidency moves to riskier countries, including Pakistan during July and Russia in October. Now is the best time for Europe to execute snap-back, otherwise the effort risks legal fights under a biased judge.

Once UN sanctions on Iran are permanently returned, the hard work will continue: Russia will likely veto funding for the expert panel that used to do the tedious work of implementing and improving UN sanctions on Iran. Russia used this playbook to kneecap the UN’s North Korea sanctions last year.

This is where Western leadership is necessary to take over the UN’s work.

A coalition of willing nations must share information on Iran’s sanctions evasions, inform neutral countries of their new legal obligations, and help interdict shipments of weapons, nuclear technology, as well as missile and drone components coming to or from Iran. Such action would have legal authorisation once snapback is implemented, but it requires coordination among allies and a strong backbone to come to fruition.

Europe and the UK will have ample work once UN sanctions return. It starts with formally exiting the long-obsolete nuclear deal.

That step will enable the EU and Britain to impose oil, energy, and banking sanctions on Iran that need to be enforced with criminal penalties. For too long, Iran has battered European cities with suicide drones, plotted and attempted dozens of assassinations on European and British soil. Snap-back is the gateway to restoring European deterrence.

Politicians across Europe are once again pledging to advance their security. Such words are rightly issued with Moscow in mind, but Tehran is critical.

Snap-back is the start of that process. It must follow with complete and unrelenting enforcement of those revived UN sanctions.

Gabriel Noronha is the Executive Director of POLARIS National Security and a fellow at the Jewish Institute of National Security of America (JINSA). He previously served as Special Adviser for Iran at the US Department of State