• US says Russia, China blocking sanctions committee work to protect Iran.
• China, Russia fail to stop Security Council discussion.
• All members should be implementing arms embargo against Iran: US envoy.

The US and Western allies clashed with Russia and China on Thursday over Iran’s nuclear intentions, as Washington sought at the United Nations to further justify the war it launched on Iran two weeks ago.

At a meeting of the 15-member UN Security Council, which is chaired this month by the US, Russia and China moved unsuccessfully to block a discussion about a committee established to oversee and enforce UN sanctions on Iran. 

They were overruled 11-2 with two abstentions.

Addressing the council, US envoy to the United Nations Mike Waltz accused Moscow and Beijing of seeking to protect Tehran by blocking the work of the so-called 1737 Committee.

“All member states of the United Nations should be implementing an arms embargo against Iran, banning the transfer and trade of missile technology, and freezing relevant financial assets,” Waltz said.

“The UN provisions to be re-imposed are not arbitrary, but instead, narrowly scoped to address the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear, missile and conventional arms programmes and Iran’s ongoing support for terrorism,” he said.

Waltz said both China and Russia did not want a functional sanctions committee “because they want to protect their partner, Iran, and continue to maintain defence cooperation that is now once again prohibited.”

Waltz noted that last week the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency had reiterated that Iran was the only state in the world without nuclear weapons to have produced and accumulated uranium enriched up to 60 per cent, and had refused to provide the IAEA access to this stockpile.

Russia’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya accused the US and its allies of whipping up “hysteria surrounding supposed plans Iran had to get a nuclear weapon” that were never corroborated by IAEA reports.

“This was done in order to undertake yet another military venture against Tehran and to ensure great escalation of the situation in the Middle East and beyond,” he said.

China’s representative, Fu Cong, called Washington the “instigator” of the Iranian nuclear crisis and said it had “resorted to blatant use of force against Iran during the negotiation process, which rendered the diplomatic efforts futile.”

Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told reporters later on Thursday that Iran’s nuclear programme “has always been exclusively peaceful,” and Tehran would not recognise any attempt to enforce sanctions against it.

US President Donald Trump has used Iran’s nuclear programme to justify his war on Iran. He said this month that Iran would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks had the US not struck three key nuclear sites in June, a claim sources have said was not supported by US intelligence assessments.

Britain and France told the Security Council that re-imposing sanctions on Iran was justified by Tehran’s failure to address concerns about its nuclear programme.

France said the IAEA was no longer able to guarantee the peaceful nature of the programme and that Tehran’s nuclear stockpile was sufficient for 10 nuclear devices.

Iran will avenge the blood of its martyrs, keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and attack US bases, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday in a statement read out on state television, his first remarks since succeeding his slain father.

In the defiant address, Khamenei said the United States must close all its bases in the region. The strait, which runs past Iran’s coast and supplies a fifth of the world’s oil, should remain shut to put pressure on the enemy, he said.He said that said Iran will seek compensation from enemies or destroy their assets accordingly. Khamenei said that the ‘resistance front’ is an inseparable part of the Islamic revolution’s values.“We believe in friendship with neighbours and only targeted the bases, and we will inevitably continue,” says the Iran’s new supreme leader.

Two tankers were ablaze in an Iraqi port on Thursday after a hit by suspected Iranian explosive-laden boats, a step-up in attacks that have cut off oil from the Middle East and defied US President Donald Trump’s claim to have won the war he launched two weeks ago.

Images verified by Reuters as having been filmed from the shore of the port of Basra showed ships engulfed in massive orange fireballs that lit up the night sky, after the attacks, which Iraqi authorities blamed on Iranian boats. At least one crew member was killed.

Hours earlier, three other ships had been struck in the Gulf. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for at least one of those attacks, on a Thai bulk carrier that was set ablaze, which the Guards said had disobeyed their orders. Another container vessel reported being struck by an unknown projectile near the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.

Global energy supplies disrupted
The war that began with a US-Israeli bombing campaign at the end of February has so far killed around 2,000 people and caused what the International Energy Agency describes as the biggest disruption to global energy supplies in history.

Undermining US and Israeli claims to have knocked out much of Iran’s stock of long-range weapons, more drones were reported on Thursday flying into Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed militia Hezbollah fired its biggest volley of rockets into Israel of the war, prompting fresh Israeli strikes on Beirut.

Oil prices soared back above $100 a barrel LCOc1, having come down earlier in the week when Trump said the war would be over soon. Iran has said it will not let oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy trade route, until US and Israeli attacks cease. O/R

Trump says ‘we won’
Trump has repeatedly tried to calm energy markets this week by saying the surge in oil prices will be short-lived.

But he has not explained how the war will end, or presented a plan to reopen the blockaded strait. US and Israeli officials say the aim is to destroy Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes, but Trump has also demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and the power to determine its leaders.

“You never like to say too ⁠early you won. We won,” ​Trump told a campaign-style rally in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday. “In ​the first hour it was over.”

The United States had “virtually destroyed Iran”, he said. But he added: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We got to finish the job.”