US allies can halt Iran’s nuke rebuilding scheme NOW — but face a ticking clock

President Donald Trump can keep Iran from rebuilding its nuclear weapons program — but he’ll have to act fast.

By Friday, the president must spur Britain, France and Germany to trigger the “snapback” of UN sanctions to rein in Iran’s atomic work, as well as its missile testing and nuclear-proliferation activities, before international restrictions expire for good this fall.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has urgently instructed his officials to block the snapback action, and they are partnering with Russia to do so.

In a last-ditch effort, Iranian diplomats this week are pledging meaningless concessions to European foreign ministers and the UN nuclear watchdog.

But the West must not be deceived: The Islamic Republic is scheming to build back better following the American and Israeli strikes that shattered the regime’s nuclear sites.

In the years since UN missile and arms embargos lapsed, Tehran has sold missiles, drones and weapons to Russia to decimate Ukraine, enhanced the lethality of its missiles, and armed the regime’s terrorist proxies to strike Israel.

That’s thanks to the 2015 Obama-Biden deal that temporarily limited Iran’s nuclear program and related trade in return for sanctions relief and other provisions.

The resulting Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and UN Resolution 2231 also lifted international arms and missile embargos on Iran in 2020 and 2023, respectively.

But under the JCPOA, the signatories could invoke a “snapback” mechanism to re-impose all UN sanctions if Iran violated its terms.

The E3 — Germany, France and the UK — as remaining members of the JCPOA, haven’t yet done so, even though the JCPOA itself is soon due to expire.

Yet snapback is clearly warranted, because Iran has repeatedly violated its JCPOA obligations.

As early as 2018, the International Atomic Energy Agency was reporting Iran’s spotty compliance with the deal’s nuclear provisions.

Since then, the agency has reported that Iran was blowing past restrictions — enriching uranium above the JCPOA’s 3.67% purity limit to at least 60% purity.

That put Iran in striking distance of achieving weapons-grade, 90%-purity uranium.

Further, Iran stockpiled uranium, installed and operated hundreds of advanced centrifuges, enriched uranium at Fordow, produced excess heavy water, restricted IAEA access and removed cameras, and expanded centrifuge research and development — all in violation of the agreed limits.

It also increased its work on constructing nuclear weapons, a process known as weaponization, inching as close as two months from the bomb, Trump has said.

The US and Israeli strikes in June extended Iran’s nuclear weapons timeline by at least two years — or longer, if Tehran hesitates to rebuild while Trump is in office.

Now the president must deal the regime a final blow by urging the E3 to spurn Iran’s attempts to evade or extend the snapback deadline.

UN Resolution 2231 and the snapback mechanism expire on Oct. 18, unless the E3 formally notifies the UN Security Council of Iran’s JCPOA violations by Aug. 29.

That would trigger a re-imposition of sanctions within 30 days — which cannot be vetoed in the Security Council by China or Russia.

Once re-imposed, the sanctions would indefinitely ban Tehran’s uranium enrichment, halt all nuclear trade, and force global compliance with economic restrictions.

They would also restore missile, drone and arms embargoes and a missile-testing ban.

The sanctions would prohibit Tehran’s proliferation financing, authorize interdictions of suspicious Iranian cargo, and require monitoring of violations, as well as impose asset freezes and travel bans on proliferation-linked entities and individuals.

Iran would never again be able to enjoy an unrestricted nuclear program with zero breakout time — or access more than $1 trillion in JCPOA sanctions relief to fund its nuclear program, missile arsenal, domestic repression and terror proxies.

Alternatively, if the E3 takes no action this week, Iran can rebuild its atomic weapons program, expand its missile-building and sell deadly weapons indefinitely.

For over 20 years, the regime in Tehran has defied nonproliferation obligations. It will never comply willingly.

But the snapback of UN sanctions, paired with relentless US pressure, diplomatic isolation and support for the Iranian people’s resistance, can constrain Tehran’s nuclear ambitions well into the future.

America and its European allies have a chance to keep Tehran permanently from the nuclear threshold and restrict its proliferation aims.

They can’t afford to squander it.

Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Andrea Stricker is deputy director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program.