Russia and China on Tuesday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution geared toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz that had been repeatedly watered down in hopes those two countries would abstain.
The vote — 11-2, with two abstentions from Pakistan and Colombia— took place just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump issued an unprecedented threat that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t open the strategic waterway and make a deal before his 8 p.m. Eastern deadline. One-fifth of the world’s oil typically passes through the strait, and Iran’s stranglehold throughout the war has sent energy prices soaring.
Russia and China strongly defended their opposition, each directly citing Trump’s most up-to-date and perilous threat yet to finish Iran’s civilization as confirmation that the proposal would have given U.S. and Israel “carte blanche for continued aggression,” as Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia put it.
Nebenzia and China’s U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, said probably the most recent text did not capture the basis causes and full picture of the conflict by showing that America and its closest ally began the now spiraling war.
“Such language is very vulnerable to misinterpretation and even abuse,” Cong said in his statement.
He added, “The draft resolution, should it have been adopted, would send a incorrect message and have serious, very serious consequences.” Cong said the war is prone to escalate, with america now “openly threatening the very survival of a civilization.”
The foreign minister of Bahrain, which authored the draft, assailed the U.N.’s strongest body for not taking motion and allowing the international community to be “held hostage to economic blackmail” from Iran.
“Failing to adopt this resolution sends the incorrect signal to the world, to the people of the world,” Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani said after the vote — “the signal that the threat to international waterways can pass with none decisive motion by the international organization liable for the upkeep of international peace and security.”
But Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. thanked its allies on the 15-member council for refusing to adopt the resolution.
“The text unjustifiably and misleadingly portrays Iran’s lawful measures within the Strait of Hormuz, which have been taken within the exercise of its inherent right of self-defense in accordance with the UN Charter, as threats to international peace and security,” Amir-Saeid Iravani said in his statement.
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It’s doubtful the resolution, even when it had been adopted, would have impacted the war, now in its sixth week, since it was been significantly weakened to attempt to get Moscow and Beijing to abstain slightly than veto it.
The initial Gulf proposal would have authorized countries to make use of “all obligatory means” — U.N. wording that might include military motion — to make sure transit through the Strait of Hormuz and deter attempts to shut it.
The US, which had supported the draft from its original form, assailed the countries that objected to the resolution.
“Nobody should tolerate that they’re holding the worldwide economy at gunpoint,” Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said of Iran, “but today, Russia and China did tolerate it.” He said in his statement: “They sided with a regime that seeks to intimidate the Gulf into submission, whilst it brutalizes its own people during a national web blackout, for daring to assume dignity or freedom.”
After Russia, China and France, all veto-wielding countries on the 15-member Security Council, expressed opposition to approving the usage of force, the resolution was revised to eliminate all references to offensive motion. It will have authorized only “all defensive means obligatory.” A vote had been expected on Saturday.
But as a substitute the resolution was further weakened to eliminate any reference to Security Council authorization — which is an order for motion — and limit its provisions to the Strait of Hormuz. Previous drafts had included adjoining waters.
The resolution vetoed Tuesday “strongly encourages states involved in the use of business maritime routes within the Strait of Hormuz to coordinate efforts, defensive in nature, commensurate with the circumstances, to contribute to making sure the security and security of navigation across the Strait of Hormuz.”
This could include escorting merchant and business vessels, and deterring attempts to shut, obstruct or interfere with international navigation through the strait, it says.
The resolution also demanded that Iran immediately halt attacks on merchant and business vessels and stop impeding their freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian infrastructure.
In the course of the Security Council meeting, Waltz appeared to back Trump’s civilizational threat, recalling that “the Iranian regime’s first act was to take dozens of Americans hostage” 47 years ago and has now taken the Strait of Hormuz hostage.
“Well, colleagues, which may be its last act,” he said. “We’ll see.”
In response to the U.S. and Israeli attacks starting on Feb. 28, Iran has targeted hotels, airports, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in greater than 10 countries, including the Islamic Republic’s Gulf neighbors, among the world’s major exporters of oil and natural gas.
Iran’s blockade within the strait is seen by Gulf nations as an existential threat. Bahrain, a Gulf nation that hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet and is the Security Council’s Arab representative and its president this month, has been pressing for U.N. motion.
In response to Iran’s strikes against its Gulf neighbors, the Security Council adopted a Bahrain-sponsored resolution on March 11 condemning the “egregious attacks” and calling for Tehran to instantly halt its strikes.
That resolution, adopted by a vote of 13-0 with Russia and China abstaining, also condemned Iran’s actions within the Strait of Hormuz as a threat to international peace and security and called for a direct end to all actions blocking shipping.
—With additional files from Global News