WASHINGTON: The head of the US Space Command said the Pentagon believes that Iran's first successful launch of a military satellite into space does not pose any intelligence threat. The Nour satellite placed into orbit on April 22 is classified by the US military as a small 3U Cubesat, three adjoined units each no more than a liter in volume and less than 1.3 kilograms each, said General Jay Raymond in a tweet late Sunday.

"Iran states it has imaging capabilities-actually, it's a tumbling webcam in space; unlikely providing intel," he wrote. "#spaceishard," Raymond added to the tweet. While Raymond downplayed any threat from the satellite, the United States has warned that Tehran's ability to place it into space represents a significant advance in its long-range missile capability, posing a greater threat to US forces and allies in the Middle East.

Last week US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of violating a 2015 UN Security Council resolution against Tehran advancing any nuclear-capable ballistic missile activities. On Saturday, Pompeo called for the United Nations to extend its conventional arms embargo on Iran beyond its scheduled end in October. "All peace-loving nations must reject Iran's development of ballistic-missile-capable technologies and join together to constrain Iran's dangerous missile programs," he said.

Iran nuclear deal
Meanwhile, Trump's administration has persistently trashed a nuclear deal with Iran. But as it seeks to extend an arms embargo, it is making the case that it still has a seat at the table. The push has drawn skepticism from Western allies and has led critics to question if the ultimate aim is to kill the deal entirely, potentially in the final stretch of Trump's re-election campaign.

"You cannot cherry-pick a resolution saying you implement only parts of it but you won't do it for the rest," a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called on United Nations members to renew the ban on all conventional arms exports to Iran which is due to expire in October.

He renewed his push last week after Iran said it had launched a military satellite into orbit for the first time-proving, according to Pompeo, that the clerical regime had been deceitful in saying its space program was for peaceful purposes. The launch should lead more countries to "understand what President Trump has understood since he first came into office, that the Iran deal was a crazy, bad deal," Pompeo told the Christian Broadcasting Network.

The arms embargo was part of a 2015 UN Security Council Resolution-whose primary purpose was to bless the deal, negotiated by former president Barack Obama, under which Iran drastically scaled back its nuclear program. Former secretary of state John Kerry has said the five-year embargo was a compromise with Russia and China, which opposed any limits. Wielding veto power, Russia and China are virtually certain to oppose a new embargo, with Moscow potentially in line for billions of dollars in arms contracts.

But there is one way to skirt a veto-if a party to the deal asserts that Iran is in significant violation of it, which would trigger a return of international sanctions. A US official and several diplomats said that the Trump administration is pushing forward with the stance, disputed by some, that the United States is able to declare Iran in violation. In a legal opinion issued last year to please hawkish Republicans, the State Department argued that the United States could do so as it was listed a "participant state" in the 2015 resolution.

'Abject failure'
The United States, of course, has shattered its own promises under the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was meant to offer economic relief to Iran and is still backed by European powers. Trump, who is close to Iran's regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel, has imposed sweeping unilateral sanctions that include trying to block all of Iran's oil exports as he seeks to reduce Tehran's regional activities.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, responding on Twitter to a New York Times article on the strategy, said that Pompeo had hoped in exiting the deal to "bring Iran to its knees." "Given that policy's abject failure, he now wants to be JCPOA participant. Stop dreaming: Iranian Nation always decides its destiny," Zarif wrote. Even most US supporters of Obama's nuclear deal back the arms embargo, with a bipartisan resolution before the Senate seeking its extension. But some believe Pompeo's motives, or at least the effects, would be broader if he tries to act from within the JCPOA.

"If Pompeo goes through with this plan, snapping back sanctions on Iran collapses the JCPOA," said Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, a research group in Washington. Even more significant, the move could lead Iran to make good on threats to exit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, she said. "This is just another step that would undermine US credibility, make future negotiations with Iran more difficult and increase the risk of a nuclear crisis in the region," she said, adding that there were other avenues to address arms exports.- Agencies