It’s the Tehran Two-Step, and this time, the White House needs to call Iran’s bluff.
As written, the Obama administration should reject the nuclear enrichment deal with Iran brokered by Turkey and Brazil. The current form of the deal would seem to be a win-win-win for Iran. It gives Iran the enriched uranium they sorely need but cannot obtain for legitimate purposes, like medical research, and softens the Chinese and Russian line on U.N.-backed sanctions, while retaining the amount of uranium necessary to construct a nuclear device.
Why, then, did this deal seem so promising last fall, when Iran nearly agreed to ship its uranium to Russia and France for enrichment and refining, respectively? That deal was a win-draw-lose for Tehran. It got the uranium needed for medical purposes and delayed — if not canceled — talk of U.N. sanctions. However, the big difference is that Iran would not have retained enough uranium for its own bomb.
Last fall during the first round of negotiations, Tehran would have been required to ship 2,640 pounds of uranium abroad, which was two-thirds of its entire stock. Iran’s remaining uranium would not have been enough to construct a nuclear warhead.
However since then, Iran has added to its uranium supply. The current deal under consideration does not change the amount Iran would be required to ship abroad, which turns out to be critical because that amount now represents only half of Tehran’s stock. If the international community agrees to the deal in which Iran shipped only 2640 pounds of uranium abroad, Iran would probably have enough uranium stock remaining to build a nuclear device.
By agreeing to the deal, Iran suddenly appears a more credible international diplomatic partner. The Russians and Chinese, whose support for U.N. sanctions was won thanks to yoeman’s work by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, could now be inclined to back-off. At the moment, China is making especially disturbing signals regarding their support for additional sanctions. It’s the standard Tehran playbook — take a hard-line until sanctions or some other punishment appears imminent, then suddenly appear reasonable just before the penalty advances past the point of no return.
How can we be sure that Iran won’t be punished? Quite simply, Iran’s happy with the deal: A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the deal offered proof that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons.
In short, the deal on the table last fall would have provided additional security, as Joe Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund stated, by “lengthening the fuse” until Tehran could have acquired nuclear weapons. This version doesn’t, and the Obama administration should reject it and wait for a serious Iranian offer.
