The United Nations has moved to reimpose international sanctions on Iran under the “snapback” mechanism built into the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, restoring restrictions on arms transfers, missile technology and sensitive financial dealings.
Unlike ordinary sanctions procedures, snapback operates automatically once a violation is declared, without requiring new approval by the Security Council.
“This mechanism was created to ensure that Iran could never breach its nuclear commitments with impunity,” E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in a statement announcing Europe’s participation in the measure.
Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, told JNS that “despite the old U.S. sanctions that have already been in place for a long time, these new sanctions are a real game-changer. These are the sanctions that pushed the Iranians to make the last deal.”
At the United Nations level, the snapback sanctions reimpose a global embargo on Iranian arms sales, a prohibition on the transfer of missile technology and bans on importing equipment that could support uranium enrichment or plutonium production. Shipping and insurance services connected to these sectors are blacklisted, cutting Iran off from critical logistics.
The European Union has added its own measures by reinstating a full embargo on Iranian crude and petrochemical exports, freezing the assets of the Central Bank of Iran and barring transactions with several large state-owned companies.
Additional restrictions apply to software, metals and naval technology with dual-use potential, closing loopholes Tehran has previously exploited. Because the mechanism operates under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, the measures are legally binding on all member states and cannot be vetoed by Russia or China.
These international steps come on top of an already dense network of unilateral U.S. sanctions. Since Washington’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018, American measures have targeted Iran’s energy sector, major banks, shipping fleets and mining industries, while threatening penalties for any foreign firms that continue business with Tehran. This dual paradigm created a patchwork system of U.S. pressure alongside partial European engagement.
Economic impact
As a result, the new sanctions find Iran in an already weakened economic position. Years of U.S. sanctions have cut oil exports to a fraction of their pre-2012 levels, with the International Energy Agency estimating that shipments fell from over 2.5 million barrels per day a decade ago to around 1 million last year, much of it routed through indirect sales to China.
The rial has lost more than 90 percent of its value since 2018, while the Statistical Center of Iran reported annual inflation above 38 percent in June. Food inflation has been even sharper, with the World Bank noting that staple items such as chicken and vegetable oil have doubled in price over the past three years. Hospitals and clinics continue to report shortages of imported medicine and diagnostic equipment, a pattern confirmed in a 2024 Human Rights Watch survey of Iran’s healthcare sector.
Raz Zimmt, director of the research program, “Iran and the Shi’ite Axis,” at INSS, cautioned that “it is important to neither overestimate nor underestimate the impact of the new sanctions. The Iranian economy was already in a very weak spot because of all the U.S. pressure, but adding on to that, the new sanctions are like a man who has cancer finding out that he is also suffering from pneumonia,” he told JNS. “It might be deadly.”
Professor David Menashri, founding director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, noted that “it is very hard to predict what the economic effects of these sanctions will be on Iran. The Islamic Republic has had to deal with various forms of sanctions since its birth,” he explained.
“Any individual factor, whether it be inflation, unemployment, water shortages, or whatever else, has been dealt with at some level in the past. The question is whether, in the big picture overall, the pressure becomes too great for the regime or for the people to bear,” Menashri told JNS.
The reimposed snapback sanctions add a layer that experts predict will further tighten constraints on Iran’s already struggling economy. The International Monetary Fund projected in its September outlook that renewed multilateral sanctions could shave a further 1.5 percentage points off Iran’s GDP growth in 2025, reducing it from an already modest forecast of 2%.
Economists also highlight the likely effect on capital markets. Without access to international insurers and clearinghouses, Iran’s shipping and trade flows are expected to become increasingly dependent on opaque middlemen, thereby raising transaction costs across the economy.
Zimmt observed that “as long as you have countries that are willing to trade with Iran, like Russia and China, they will likely be able to drag themselves along, but at this point, any kind of additional economic pressure is very damaging to the regime.”
Domestic politics
In the realm of domestic politics, the snapback sanctions intensify pressure on two critical pillars of the Islamic Republic: the security-linked elites who profit from controlled markets, and the broader population already burdened by years of economic decline.
While the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has historically expanded its economic footprint under sanctions by monopolizing smuggling and no-bid contracts, the return of U.N. and E.U. measures constrains access to hard currency and narrows the scope of profitable trade.
Sabti pointed out that “these sanctions are important because they hurt people who are critical to the stability of the regime, not just the regular people of Iran. The industries that are targeted … were major sources of wealth for important people in and around the regime. The people who are getting hurt are the oligarchs of Iranian society, and they are the ones who have the power to come to the leaders, to force them to change policy because it’s affecting them economically.”
Sabti cautioned that these restrictions can generate friction within the elite, as rival factions compete over shrinking rents and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
“In the aftermath of the Israel war, around 40 generals are not there anymore, which means there’s a whole new generation that is suddenly in power. These kinds of changes always come with power struggles and internal instability. If you add on top of that, suddenly, a lot of the economic elite are getting financially cut off; this is a recipe for internal fighting,” he explained.
For ordinary Iranians, the effect is more direct. Inflation above 38 percent and double-digit unemployment have already eroded purchasing power, and additional sanctions on oil exports, banking and shipping are expected to raise costs further. Historical precedent suggests that when household budgets collapse under the pressure of sanctions, as in 2012 and 2019, protests over fuel, wages and corruption can spread quickly.
Zimmt said that “as the economic pressure mounts, there is certainly a lot of unhappiness with the regime because of the poor conditions, and there’s an increased chance for that unhappiness to turn into protests or mass anti-government demonstrations.”
At the same time, he cautioned that “these sorts of protests have been seen already in the past and often lead to repression and to a crackdown, but not to the actual breakdown of the regime.”
Menashri observed that “in a certain sense, the major pressure, both military and economic, that is put on Iran makes the government suppress possible protests even stronger. Additionally, people have a hard time going out to protest when there’s a feeling of national pressure.”
Yet he added that “Iran has a long history of protest and revolution. When there are so many destabilizing factors in the country, the smallest thing could set off a spark, and adding more economic pressure destabilizes the situation even further.”
Whether these pressures destabilize the regime or reinforce it may depend on the balance between grievance and control. On one hand, hardship can provoke a rally-around-the-flag effect, as leaders frame sanctions as foreign aggression and call for national resilience. On the other hand, Iran’s recent history shows that widespread economic hardship often produces street demonstrations, which the state meets with intensified repression: mass arrests, internet shutdowns and expanded powers for security forces.
Nuclear and ballistic
The snapback sanctions are designed to hit at the core of Iran’s nuclear and missile ambitions by choking procurement channels and restricting access to the international financial system. The bans on advanced metals, dual-use software and missile-related technology close off supplies that are critical for centrifuge development and ballistic systems. Iran has previously relied on front companies and black-market suppliers to fill these gaps, but the new sanctions make those networks more vulnerable to disruption.
Zimmt argued that “it doesn’t seem that the sanctions will actually have a major effect on their nuclear ambitions. We can already see, since the end of the war, that they are very determined to rebuild their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”
He added that their restraint is driven “more by fear of another strike from the U.S. or from Israel, not the new sanctions or even necessarily economic pressure.”
Sabti explained that in his view, the sanctions should impact Iran’s nuclear capacity in the medium- to long-term. “In the short-term, the nuclear project might not slow down that much, but in a few months, the pressure will start building, and they’ll see that they can’t keep spending like this and that they just don’t have the money to support such a complex operation. Over time, there will definitely be an effect,” he said.
Proxies
In addition to reducing the nuclear threat, experts believe that new sanctions are likely to impact Iran’s terror programs. A major vulnerability created by the snapback is Iran’s reduced ability to underwrite its regional proxies. Hezbollah, Hamas and allied militias have depended on steady cash transfers to maintain payrolls, buy arms and provide social services that sustain their political legitimacy.
Past sanctions cycles forced Tehran to scale back these transfers, and analysts expect a renewed squeeze. A U.S. Treasury assessment found that during the 2012 sanctions period, Hezbollah’s external financing fell by nearly 40%, prompting the terror group to cut stipends and delay salaries. The return of U.N. and E.U. restrictions threatens to recreate similar conditions by further limiting Iran’s convertible hard currency.
Arms supply is also at risk. The formal reimposition of a global embargo on weapons and missile components complicates Iran’s efforts to ship drones, rockets and precision parts to its allies. Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal and the Houthis’ expanding drone and missile program both rely on transfers of key components from abroad. While smuggling networks remain, the added layer of enforcement raises the transaction cost and detection risk.
However, experts note that the impact of sanctions on the proxy strategy may not be purely restraining. When Iran’s capacity to bankroll its partners’ contracts is limited, those groups often resort to more aggressive, lower-cost asymmetric actions to signal resilience.
Zimmt said, “We have seen in the past that even in times of great economic pressure, the Iranians have generally continued to support their various proxies because for them it’s a major priority. If anything, the current pressure that they are under is likely to be seen as increasing the importance of their proxy system, as they are a very efficient way of maintaining relevance and power.”
Sabti argued that “the last thing that will be affected is the terror proxies, because that is what requires the least amount of investment. Ultimately, all you need to do is give some young kid in Yemen or in Samaria a gun and tell him to go ahead and do a terrorist attack. This requires very little input from the Iranians, so that is likely the last thing we’ll see disappear.”
