U.S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place.White House press secretary Josh Earnest repeated the phrase:
The architecture of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of the deal and allow for snap-back of sanctions in the event of significant non-performance.
If they don't live up to the agreement, sanctions would "snap" back into place, he said.President Obama has been using the "snap back" term a lot as well, as he told the NYT, the United States would “preserve the ability to snap back those sanctions if there is a violation.”
What exactly does "snap back" mean?
In a word: nothing.
The phrase is not defined anywhere as far as I can tell. It is something left for the later negotiations.
While it sounds instant, there is no detail given to this meaningless term. Re-imposing the same level of sanctions cannot possibly be done on a moment's notice. Or even within months.
Not to mention that it took years of sanctions to even bring Iran to the negotiating table. Even if sanctions could be re-imposed instantly, Iran could weather them for the time it takes to build a bomb.
The entire reason that the phrase was coined was not to force Iran into a better deal, but to convince Americans that the deal is better than it really is.
This seems to indicate that the White House spent more time on deciding how to spin the deal than they did on actually ensuring that the deal would be as good as possible.
One thing is certain: "snap-back" sanctions will not be imposed in a snap. We deserve to know exactly what this soundbite means.
(h/t EBoZ)