Don't Look Now, But Obama May Have An Iran Success

By Steve Hynd

It's the accepted Beltway wisdom that Obama's diplomatic outreach to Iran over its nuclear program is already over, failed. He was always going to be given one chance which was expected to not succeed and now that it has failed it's time to move on to further punitive sanctions. Unfortunately, it's also clear that sanctions will almost certainly not be UNSC backed and won't work in any case. Beltway wisdom leaves only one recourse after sanctions fail too - bombs.

Iran's leadership is well aware of the Villager's collective logic for eventual war, and know that the end of this month is the "red line" point beyond which it will be well-nigh impossible to prevent the narrative for eventual war playing itself out. Thus their's an element of panic in their attempt to keep a little national pride while capitulating to the West on a central principle today.

Speaking to reporters at a regional security conference in Bahrain, [Iranian Foreign Minister] Manochehr Mottaki said Iran agreed with a U.N. deal proposed in October in which up to 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilograms) of its uranium would be exchanged for fuel rods to power its research reactor.

"We accepted the proposal in principle," he said through a translator. "We suggested in the first phase we give you 400 kilograms of 3.5 percent enriched uranium and you give us the equivalent in 20 percent uranium."

Mottaki said that, contrary to Western media leaks by diplomats to the IAEA and a statement based upon those leaks by Britain's Gordon Brown, this was Iran's official response to the IAEA's proposed deal under which Tehran would ship most of its low-enriched uranium stockpile abroad to be processed into fuel rods, which can't be enriched further.

"We gave a clear answer and we responded and our answer was we accepted in principle but there were differences in the mechanism," he said, suggesting the exchange take place on Iran's Kish island, in the Persian Gulf.

It is not clear, however, if the low-enriched uranium would then remain on the island or could be shipped out of the country — a necessary condition to any deal from the standpoint of the international community.

The world powers are also unlikely to accept a long drawn out exchange in stages, as it would allow Iran to maintain enough enriched uranium inside the country to possibly build a weapon.

Iran, meanwhile, wants to receive the fuel rods immediately in exchange for its uranium for fear that France or Russia could renege deal.

I've no doubt that the conventional Beltway wisdom will be that this is just another stalling tactic from Iran and that they aren't intending to finalize any deal. That would ignore the fact that the narrative the Beltway foreign policy elite have imposed upon the whole process is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indeed, one of the most thorny problems so far has been that Iran has been pretty sure that America and its allies didn't really want a deal either, and were just going through the motions before an attack could be justified to the world. That view has been based upon what that elite has been writing and saying for years now. If Iran has deep trust issues, it's for good reason.

But Iran has to know that the choice is really between a deal soon or eventual bombs - and that's no real choice at all. They'll do a deal, if only the Beltway crowd will let Obama accept one.

Comments

[Russ Wellen]

Thanks, Steve. I'd been puzzling over today's development. But what does this mean (particularly the emphasis added)? (From an AFP article on the same subject)

But the IAEA has already ruled out a swap taking place inside Iran."I don't think that is an option. The whole purpose of the deal is to defuse the crisis," outgoing chief Mohamed ElBaradei said last month at the agency's Vienna base before handing over to his successor, Yukiya Amano.

I'd appreciate your help for a post I'm writing.

[Egypt Steve]

Are we sure the Iranian regime doesn't want the US to go ahead and bomb? They would be confident that the US could never mount a full-scale invasion and occupation. They might calculate that even a successful bombing campaign would simply have the same results that a deal with the West would have: an end to their nuclear weapons ambitions (assuming they have such ambitions ... still unproved). But it would create the benefit to them of totally discrediting elements in Iran that want rapprochement with the West, and of cementing the regime in place for another generation at least.

Callous, and indifferent to the lives of their own people? Of course. But it's also the logic of Likud and their long-standing calculation that terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens are a price well worth paying to maintain the occupation and to keep a right-wing Israeli voting majority. Authoritarian regimes make such calculations all the time.

[empty]

Steve, I don't see any change in the Iranian position. They have always (you know what I mean) agreed to a swap but they have wanted the swap to take place on Iranian soil. That is, the IAEA would take custody of Iranian LEU on a site within Iran and hold it until the French fuel rods are brought to the site at which point the Iranian LEU would be shipped out of Iran. That was Mottaki's position back in November IIRC. What change do you see?

[Russ Wellen]

Empty wrote:

That is, the IAEA would take custody of Iranian LEU on a site within Iran and hold it until the French fuel rods are brought to the site at which point the Iranian LEU would be shipped out of Iran.

Now I get the significance of Kish, which I was questioning in my first comment.

But it would create the benefit to them of totally discrediting elements in Iran that want rapprochement with the West, and of cementing the regime in place for another generation at least.

Egypt Steve wrote:

But it would create the benefit to them of totally discrediting elements in Iran that want rapprochement with the West, and of cementing the regime in place for another generation at least. ... Authoritarian regimes make such calculations all the time.

Callous, all right, and I hadn't seriously considered it. But I guess you're right, Egypt Steve.

[Russ Wellen]

Sorry for repeating the same sentence in the above comment.

[Ian Welsh]

Why has it become conventional wisdom that Iran can't retaliate? There are still a lot of troops in Iraq, and a surge in Afghanistan, and Iran has a lot of influence in both places.