A Good Beginning With Iran

By Steve Hynd

When I first read President Obama's remarks after the talks with Iran today I saw this:

The IAEA proposal that was agreed to in principle today with regard to the Tehran research reactor is a confidence-building step that is consistent with that objective, provided that it transfers Iran's low- enriched uranium to a third country for fuel fabrication.

As I've said before, we support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear power. Taking the step of transferring its low-enriched uranium to a third country would be a step towards building confidence that Iran's program is in fact peaceful.

And I thought "That's a deal-breaker." Iran has said in the past that it doesn't trust Russia not to turn the fuel tap off whenever it wants to pressure Iran - just as Russia has done with customers of its gas pipelines. Not wanting to be held hostage by another nation as fuel provider was always an ostensibly believable reason Iran wanted to master the whole fuel cycle itself. After all, neither the U.S. nor any other major power would willingly put itself in such a weakened position for energy blackmail.

But almost right away I saw that McClatchy was saying Iran had agreed in principle.

Under the tentative deal reached here, Iran would ship what a U.S. official said was "most" of its approximately 3.300 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia where it would be further refined. French technicians would then fabricate it into fuel rods and return it to Tehran, to insert into a nuclear research reactor that is used to make isotopes for nuclear medicine.

I'm frankly amazed that Iran agreed to this, given past rhetoric. I really thought it would hold out for an internationalized fuel bank on Iranian soil - which is still the best long-term fix in that it assuages both sides' doubts. I can only imagine that the increased talk of crippling sanctions and even attacks following the disclosure of the Quom plant has been a even more of a game-changer than expected, convincing Iran it needs to make some serious short-term concessions if it wants to get anything at all in its interest long-term.

But Obama is still wrong about this:

This is not about singling out Iran; this is not about creating double standards. This is about the global nonproliferation regime and Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, just as all nations have it, but with that right comes responsibilities.

Nonsense. Of course its at least in part about double standards. India, Pakistan and Israel all have nuclear arsenals developed outside the NPT framework but are all getting aid and trade from the West. Can anyone seriously imagine that if they hadn't been making friendly noises to the U.S. that they'd have gotten off as lightly as they have for ignoring their responsibilities? The U.S. and its allies cannot ignore the three allied elephants in the room forever.

Comments

[Behrooz]

Difficult to believe, especially when you remember all the past reports based on unnamed people "who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly."

Also, wouldn't this be the last thing they would come to. To think they met and agreed on their endgame upfront is puerile journalism. There is a difference between agreeing to talk about something and capitulation.

The sad part is that the toughtalkers and the sanctionista always manage to fortify their blind faith.

There is one faint, almost unlikely, possibility though, that Obama reaches an under the table deal with them and they allow him to show a tough face for his domestic benefit. this sort of fits with his two letters to the ayatullah and his nonesensical speeches regarding Qom, or for that matter any time he talks about iran's nuclear program. I wish I could becoem a wishful thinker.

[Russ Wellen]

Why would Iran accept shipping their LEU abroad? Bruno Pellaud at Huffington Post writes:

Politically, it seems that they have decided to counter Western concern in the short term, without losing ownership of the material in the long-term. Iran would keep title to the LEU, but the material would be beyond Iranian reach. Formally, Iran would simply purchase from Russia fabricated reactor fuel bundles for their own reactors - first for the Tehran research reactor, later for power plants - making use of their own LEU. The LEU should of course be shipped immediately to the fabricator, and stored there until fuel manufacturing.