By Steve Hynd
Iran has concluded a deal with Turkey and Brazil to send 1,200kg of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey to hold in escrow, to be replaced - if all goes well - with medium-enriched uranium suitable for its research reactor.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium would be shipped to Turkey, and that Iran would notify the IAEA "within a week".
Under the deal, Iran has said it is prepared to move its uranium within a month of its approval by the so-called Vienna Group (US, Russia, France and the IAEA).
In return, Iran says it expects to receive 120kg of more highly enriched uranium (20%) - a purity well below that used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons - within a year.
If the deadline is not met, Iran says Turkey "will return swiftly and unconditionally Iran's low-enriched uranium".
It's a variant on an original UN-approved plan and as such it throws a definite spanner in the works of sanctions plans. The White House is currently treading a careful line, since Obama backed the original deal, saying:
The proposal announced in Tehran must now be conveyed clearly and authoritatively to the IAEA before it can be considered by the international community. Given Iran�s repeated failure to live up to its own commitments, and the need to address fundamental issues related to Iran�s nuclear program, the United States and international community continue to have serious concerns. While it would be a positive step for Iran to transfer low-enriched uranium off of its soil as it agreed to do last October, Iran said today that it would continue its 20% enrichment, which is a direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions and which the Iranian government originally justified by pointing to the need for fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. Furthermore, the Joint Declaration issued in Tehran is vague about Iran�s willingness to meet with the P5+1 countries to address international concerns about its nuclear program, as it also agreed to do last October.
Press Sec. Robert Gibbs also reasserted the administration's commitment to a "diplomatic solution" to the West's concerns over Iran's nuclear program, in co-operation with its P5+1 partners.
However, you couldn't tell that from reading the news and august opinion surrounding the Iranian deal's announcement. Rather than celebrate a possible breakthrough, Glenn Kessler, reliable stenographer of the hawkish Clinton contingent, wrote:
More important, the deal gives China -- a veto-holding member of the Security Council long reluctant to support new sanctions -- an excuse to delay or water down any new resolution.
The best hope for U.S. officials is Iranian intransigence. The Iranians could haggle over the details and implementation of the agreement until it collapses, much in the way it first agreed to a swap deal with the United States and its allies before backing away.
Iran now must present a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna explaining the details of the transaction, which U.S. officials privately hope will begin the process of unraveling it.
And the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has said the IAEA must rubber-stamp the deal before it will be acceptable - while another anonymous EU diplomat (likely French) indicated that there will be pressure on the IAEA to nit-pick and nix the deal.
What looks likely to me is that the White House will rely on the French and pressure at the IAEA to give it political cover for saying the deal shouldn't interfere with any sanctions push. Yet that appears to be a policy of determindly looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and FAS researcher Ivanka Barzashka told Danger Room that the technical difference between the October deal and the May deal is small � and that Iran is offering up a key opportunity for engagement.
�A ton of LEU [low enriched uranium] is a crude nuclear weapons� worth of material,� said Barzashka. �It�s safe to say that you�re reducing the number of nuclear weapons Iran can make in the future.�
Oelrich and Barzashka point to a second problem, however: Iran has used stalled negotiations about the research reactor start enriching a small quantity of uranium to 20 percent. In theory, if Iran develops a significant stockpile of 20 percent uranium � something it has not done yet � it would cut in half the time to reach 90 percent. �That�s an important thing to avoid,� Oelrich said.
According to calculations by Barzashka and Oelrich, if Iran had shipped out a ton of material back in October, it would have left them with around 800 kg as feedstock, not enough to acquire a significant quantity of highly enriched uranium. If they continue to enrich uranium, however, they might have enough by October to ship out a ton and still have enough material left over to begin enriching a bomb�s worth of the stuff.
Thus far, however, Oelrich and Barzashka argue that the effort to enrich to 20 percent is modest, and has more political than technical meaning. �We think it�s largely symbolic at this point,� Oelrich said.
And FAS is encouraging the State Department to take a serious look at the proposal. �This whole deal was supposed to be a step forward for engaging Iran, not to stop its enrichment program,� Oelrich said. �Frankly, we�re about to go over to the State Department today and try to convince them to accept Iran�s timing of their proposal.�
I'm trying to follow the hawkish logic here. Sanctions won't delay Iran's nuclear program much if at all and are unlikley to even have a significantly brow-beating effect on Iran's economy in the longer term - Iran has been feverishly upgrading its petroleum refining capacity and taking other pre-emptive measures to soften any effects. They won't work but they'll consolidate Iran's polulation behind the hardliners and even increase the chance of war if the dumb and illegal idea of a unilateral or "coalition of the willing" petroleum embargo goes through. Yet the hawks are hoping - hoping - Iran makes a misstep so that they can put sanctions back on track while simultaneaously working to break any chance of diplomacy working at the IAEA.
The only conclusion I can come to is that they want negotiations to fail, want sanctions to fail in turn and thus be left with the last option - war. Not for any reason to do with Iran's nuclear program, which wouldn't be delayed by more than a couple of years by any attack short of full invasion, but because "real men go to Tehran", as the neocon war cry once had it. Lunacy.
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