Word: uranium
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...deeper reality, though, is that even if Iran cooperates, it won't necessarily do so on Western terms. The progress made in Geneva, for example, skirted the primary demand that the U.S. and its European allies have pressed since 2006: that Iran freeze and eventually give up its uranium-enrichment program in exchange for a package of political and economic incentives. (See pictures of IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei...
...What Iran did agree to was inspections at Qum and an arrangement to send low-enriched uranium to Russia to create fuel rods for its medical-research reactor in Tehran. The terms on which those inspections and the deal for enrichment abroad will be implemented remain to be seen. But they may well strengthen safeguards against Iran's turning nuclear material into weapons, even as they bypass the demand for Iran to halt uranium enrichment...
...Security Council resolutions, backed by limited sanctions, require that Iran suspend enrichment until transparency concerns raised by the IAEA are settled. But the Western demand that Iran cede the right to enrich its own uranium is a more ambitious goal that doesn't have U.N. backing - because enrichment under safeguards to prevent weaponization is a right of all signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). When Iran insists it won't negotiate over its "nuclear rights," that's a signal that it has no intention of giving up enrichment. And the Iranians have thus far declined to discuss...
...assembling sufficient civilian nuclear infrastructure to allow it to move relatively quickly to build a bomb should it choose to break out of the NPT, in the manner that a country like Japan is capable of doing. That goal required Iran to give up exercising its right to enrich uranium. There's no sign of Iran moving in that direction, but if it shows new flexibility in negotiating further safeguards against weaponization of its nuclear output, that will create a new dilemma for the Obama Administration: whether or not the U.S. and its allies, particularly Israel, can live with...
...defy international demands." The argument works if Iran stonewalls; but if it offers counterproposals deemed reasonable by China, Russia and some Europeans, winning support for further sanctions would become even harder. And that's a game the Iranians may be ready to play, by refusing to give up uranium enrichment but at the same time showing new openness to measures aimed at strengthening international confidence in the peaceful intent of its nuclear program. Tehran is far more likely to tailor its positions to what will be acceptable to Russia, China and some of the Europeans than it is to heed...