Iranian officials are signaling a willingness to quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with parliament drafting legislation to pull the country out and a provision that, if Western sanctions come back, would make further talks pointless and could cut contact with the E3 to push the withdrawal through on a legislative track. Some observers see it as domestic showmanship, but the timing coincides with Germany, France, and Britain informing the UN Security Council that they activated the Snapback mechanism, which could reimpose UN sanctions. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghtschi dismissed the Snapback as baseless and unlawful, though he did not rule out talks if the E3 mirrors a more realistic approach. On August 22, 2025, Iran’s UN mission forwarded Araghtschi’s letter to the UNSC via the EU’s External Action Service, arguing that the United States and the E3 violated the 2015 Vienna agreement rather than Iran. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas sees a diplomatic opening within the 30-day window created by the Snapback, while Russia and China side with Tehran—Moscow warning of irreversible consequences and Beijing calling the move not constructive. Germany’s Foreign Office has warned Germans against traveling to Iran, with consular assistance limited for the time being.

I’m charged up and furious at this theater of cold-war grandstanding while the rest of the world spins in traffic. nations tossing around treaties like a toy, while ordinary people sit in buses that never come, trains that are late, and cars that should be roaring down open highways. Speed limits, those tiny numbers on signs clamped to the roadside, are being wielded as political sticks to keep people in perfect, obedient lines. That, to me, is the real crime against humanity and fascist oppression: treating speed as a tool of control rather than a human freedom. We don’t need more diplomacy by napkin-wringers who’ll clamp down on movement to soothe nerves in chancelleries. We need room to move, room to accelerate, room to live.

Every time governments embroil themselves in brinkmanship over sanctions and treaties, it’s the drivers who get boxed in—the commuters, the delivery folk, the families who need to get to work, to school, to the hospital drive-through. The road should be a realm of opportunity, not a battlefield for political posturing. Give people back their right to move at a speed that makes sense on a given road, in a given moment, with responsibility and skill—not under the thumb of nominal rules that smother initiative. Let negotiations breathe, but let the engines roar for those who choose to drive. If diplomacy has a window, fill it with the freedom to drive as well as to talk. Because the true measure of a society’s progress is how quickly and safely it lets its people get from point A to point B in their own cars, on their own terms.