Yusef JalaliOn September 28, Iranians woke up to a nightmare that had already sneaked into their reality at midnight while they were asleep.
Many stayed awake until 4 AM, waiting for the moment when the harshest UN sanctions would be announced, marking one of their most sleepless nights after the June Israeli war stole their rest for 12 nights.
After months of diplomatic back-and-forth between Tehran and the West, the so-called ‘snapback sanctions’ were finally triggered, reimposing international bans Iran had spent a decade trying to escape.
The mechanism, built into the 2015 nuclear deal – or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – was set in motion by Britain, France, and Germany, who argued that Iran had violated the accord.
The accusations ramped up after Iran halted cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, blocking access to the sites hit by Israel and the US in the recent conflict.
The move resurrects six UN Security Council resolutions, lifted under the JCPOA, ranging from asset freezes to arms embargoes and curbs on nuclear and missile activities, turning the screws on an economy already battered by years of sanctions.
Hardliners in Tehran insist the country can withstand the pressure, projecting resilience.
Yet the snapback’s announcement alone rattled markets, laying bare the fragility of an economy that's grappling with hyperinflation and global isolation.
As news of the UN Security Council vote broke, Iran's financial markets reacted immediately. The rial, long a barometer of geopolitical stress, nosedived to a record low of 1,110,000 to the US dollar in informal trading.
Gold, a refuge for Iranians seeking to shield their savings from devaluation, skyrocketed in tandem. And local automakers quickly updated the price tags, with leading brands like SAIPA increasing prices by up to 6.7 percent.
"The market is hypersensitive to such political shocks," says Hadi Mohammadi, a journalist and political analyst.
"A year of turmoil, like snap elections following the death of president Raisi, Iran-Israel war, and now the snapback sanctions, has made the market fragile. This will definitely affect ordinary people's purchasing power,” Mohammadi tells TRT World.
Mohammadi predicts that while this initial panic may subside, the psychological blow risks fueling Iran’s already punishing inflation rate, which exceeds 40 percent annually.
For a nation of 90 million, with one-third of households already below the poverty line, the consequences are dire.
Diplomatic window still ajar
Iran tried every path to avert snapback. In early September, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi signed an agreement in Cairo to resume nuclear inspections.
The pact was meant to pave the ground for the IAEA's access to enrichment sites like Natanz, that's been off-limits since the June war.
Yet, Tehran says Washington kept throwing wrenches, making "excessive demands," such as Tehran handing over its 400kg of highly enriched uranium in exchange for a three-month sanctions delay.
“The US showed they’re not serious about talks, pushing negotiations to a dead end,” says Mohammadi. Russia and China’s push for a six-month snapback delay also faltered at the UNSC, outvoted by the West.
However, a slim diplomatic window remains until October 18, when the snapback process under Resolution 2231 runs its course. A breakthrough before that deadline could reverse the sanctions; otherwise, they harden into place.
But Tehran, stung by distrust, shows little appetite for talks. Foreign Minister Araghchi accused the E3 of “burying diplomacy” after Washington’s “betrayal," pointing to June’s Oman-mediated negotiations that were disrupted mid-course by Israeli attacks.
Once hoping for relief from post-2018 US sanctions, Iran now faces even more sweeping restrictions, not only on its nuclear and missile programs as key elements of its deterrence, but also on global trade and its oil sector, the lifeblood of the national economy.
"These sanctions raise investment risks and tighten banking, hitting trade and oil indirectly but hard,” says Mohammadi. "The effect isn’t instant, but it deepens economic strain over time.”
Not an apocalypse
Not all voices in Tehran view the snapback implementation as an apocalyptic disaster for Iran. Hardline conservatives, long sceptical of Western overtures, argue the sanctions are more symbolic than crippling.
“What is certain is that the sanctions imposed by the US against Iran are far heavier than the UN sanctions. These sanctions have more psychological burden than economic,” Alireza Zandian, a member of parliament, was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
Ahmad Salehi, an international relations analyst who has studied the six UN resolutions in detail, describes snapback as a weaker version of US sanctions.
“None of these resolutions - the heaviest being Resolution 1929 - mentions sanctions on Iran’s central bank or banking network. They only target one Bank Melli subsidiary in Malaysia for nuclear-related transactions,” Salehi explains.
In commerce, he adds, “They allow third countries to inspect Iran-bound containers only if there’s reasonable grounds for dual-use goods, but before the JCPOA, no such inspections occurred in practice.”
Decades of sanctions have led Iran to adapt to foreign pressure. Ruhollah Modabber, a Russia-Iran relations expert, says that Iran's economic woes have little to do with foreign factors.
"The real pressure comes from internal mismanagement and over-reliance on talks with the West, not these recycled resolutions," he tells TRT World.
The fresh sanctions have sparked a new debate in Iran's polarised political discourse, pitting hardliners against reformists in a blame game over the unravelling of JCPOA.
Pezeshkian’s reformist administration is under pressure from the conservative-dominated parliament for putting "all eggs in the basket of overtures to the West" and sidelining Iran's Eastern partners like Russia and China.
Firebrand hardliner Saeed Jalili, who lost the presidential race to Pezeshkian, has resurfaced in recent days, reminding Iranians that he long warned of this moment.
“I take pride that during our negotiations, we never gave in to a deal that would leave Iran powerless to even protest if the other side violated it," he said in a social media post, reflecting on his tenure as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in 2007–2013.
Pro-conservative analysts like Modabber call the 2015 accord a "loser's deal," forged by a "dishonest" negotiating team under then-foreign minister Javad Zarif.
"Zarif denied the snapback's existence in interviews, ignored (Russian Foreign Minister) Sergei Lavrov's warnings that it would neuter Russia and China's veto power, and treated our allies like Russia and China with contempt, kicking Chinese firms out of oil projects and putting them 'last in line' behind Europe," Modabber recounts.
Reformists, however, counter that sabotage from domestic hardliners torpedoed the accord. "Conservatives opposed it from day one, obstructing implementation to see it falter," Mohammadi says, adding that the JCPOA was balanced.
"Even Trump called it America's worst agreement, admitting Zarif outmanoeuvred John Kerry," he recalls, referring to the former US secretary of state, one of the key backers of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Back to the east
When Russia and China's last-ditch efforts to postpone the snapback mechanism failed at the UNSC, they openly rejected its legitimacy, saying they remain committed to trade with Iran.
Russia has already launched a banking channel for Tehran-Moscow transactions, bypassing the Western-backed SWIFT, the financial mainstay of global trade.
"Connecting our banks directly could make Iran truly resilient by proceeding trade in local currencies, joint ventures in energy, and mutual defence pacts," says Modabber.
"Iran underutilised this model because the pro-Western reformist government kept everything on hold for American negotiations."
But not anymore. Facing a deadlock towards the West, Pezeshkian has now jumped on the conservatives' bandwagon, exploring the ultimate remedy in the East. The president's pivot is palpable.
He invoked BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation with newfound urgency, calling for "deeper integration" to counter isolation.
Such statements mark a tactical shift, but experts question their timing.
"Pezeshkian now talks BRICS and SCO, but what infrastructure is ready?" questions Modabber, recalling the late president Ebrahim Raisi's staunch ‘Look East’ policy that prioritised Iran's engagement with the two Global South groupings as shields against Western pressure.
Pezeshkian's pivot, Modabber argues, comes "too late," as Western hawks "exploited the distraction to pull the snapback trigger".
Despite domestic finger-pointing, distrust in the West appears to have bridged a significant foreign policy gap between reformists and hardliners.
“Snapback taught us there’s no hope in the West. We must solve our problems elsewhere,” says MP Ebrahim Rezaei.
Yet divisions persist on retaliation: Pezeshkian rejects quitting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while the hardline parliament considers NPT exit, cutting IAEA access, or even expelling E3 ambassadors.
As Iran weighs its options, the snapback burden is already casting its shadow on the streets of Tehran, where forex boards continue to fluctuate with every new hint of escalation.
