Word: nuclearism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
President Barack Obama on Oct. 1 gave Iran two weeks to open its hitherto secret nuclear facility at Qum to inspection. Iran eventually agreed to allow officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit the site on Oct. 25. That 10-day gap between what Obama demanded and what Iran was willing to concede symbolizes the looming dilemma for the Administration on Iran nuclear diplomacy - even if a solution is achieved, it's unlikely to be the solution that the West has been demanding...
...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...
...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 the "freeze for freeze" proposal that was offered by the West last summer...
...That doesn't necessarily mean there's no diplomatic solution in the works or that Iran is simply playing for time. What it does mean is that Iran will try to focus the diplomacy on strengthening safeguards against weaponization of nuclear material, rather than on halting the production of such material in the first place, as the Western powers have demanded. The U.S. and its allies had sought to prevent Iran from achieving a "breakout" capacity - i.e., assembling sufficient civilian nuclear infrastructure to allow it to move relatively quickly to build a bomb should it choose to break...
...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 the demands put forward by the U.S. and its key allies. (Neither Moscow nor Beijing believes Iran is building nuclear weapons, even...