The new American negotiating gambit towards Iran

The Financial Times reports that the United States has made a new concession over Iran's ambiguous nuclear program: In a major concession towards Iran's nuclear programme, the US on Friday gave its public backing to a proposal by Russia and the European Union that would allow the Islamic republic to develop part of the nuclear fuel cycle on its own territory. The shift in US policy - revealed after talks between President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader - came despite a report from the UN nuclear watchdog that lent credence to US and European claims that Iran is trying, or once had ambitions, to develop nuclear weapons.... In Busan, South Korea, Stephen Hadley, the US national security adviser, said the US supported a Russian proposal that would give Iran an assured supply of nuclear fuel. Under the proposal, Russia would take uranium that Iran had converted into gas in its own facilities, enrich it in a Russian plant that would be under part-Iranian management then deliver it back to Iran to be used as fuel in its civilian reactors. It was a "potential avenue" out of the impasse, Mr Hadley said. Mr Bush gave his personal backing to the initiative in his meeting with Mr Putin, officials said. The US has previously rejected proposals that would allow Iran to develop part of the nuclear fuel cycle, on the grounds that Iran would try to divert UF-6, the converted gas, into a covert enrichment programme for bomb-making.... Diplomats said the shift reflected a more realistic position by the US which was struggling to find the diplomatic support for imposing sanctions on Iran after referral to the UN Security Council. The US may also be gambling that Iran will reject the proposal which Mr Hadley said required Iran to give up its "right" to enrich uranium on its territory. Iran has not formally responded to the proposal. Britain, France and Germany, which have led an EU effort to reach a deal, are reluctant to refer Iran to the Security Council at the IAEA board meeting next week while diplomacy can run its course. Having the Russians monitor Iran's WMD program strikes me as the IR equivalent of having Chivas Regal sponsoring an AA meeting [Or having you chaperoning Salma Hayek's dates!--ed.]. So why the switch in policy? I see three possible explanations in the FT article: 1) The U.S. doesn't like the end-game options on Iran and is trying to stall as long as possible; 2) The U.S. thinks Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is such a loon that he'll reject this proposal as well. This would force the EU and Russia to admit that the current Iranian regime has gone completely round the bend and actually lead to some useful Security Council action. 3) Putin has those kind of hangdog eyes that George W. Bush simply can't resist in an intimate, one-on-one conversation. I'm pretty sure the answer is not #3. And undesirable end games haven't stopped this administration from not compromising in the past. So my vote is for #2 -- the best way to deal with an unreasonable negotiating partner on the international stage is to convince everyone in the audience of that fact before taking more forceful action. The Guardian's Simon Tisdall and Ewen MacAskill have some reporting to suggest that most Iranians -- including the all-powerful clerics -- now agree with the "unreasonable" label (link via Andrew Sullivan): Iran is facing political paralysis as its newly elected president purges government institutions, bringing accusations that he is undertaking a coup d'état. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's clearout of his opponents began last month but is more sweeping than previously understood and has reached almost every branch of government, the Guardian has learned. Dozens of deputy ministers have been sacked this month in several government departments, as well the heads of the state insurance and privatisation organisations. Last week, seven state bank presidents were dismissed in what an Iranian source described as "a coup d'état".... Growing resistance inside Iran to Mr Ahmadinejad, who was unexpectedly elected in June, is coming from several senior figures and sections of the media. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who was runner-up in the election, denounced the purge and, in comments reported by Iranian news agencies, suggested the president should be reined in. "A tendency in Iran is trying to banish competent officials and it is harming the country like a plague," Mr Rafsanjani said. "Our society has been divided into two poles and some people are behaving aggressively." Hassan Rohani, sacked as Iran's senior nuclear negotiator, told Tehran newspapers that the negotiations with the west were being mishandled. The former president Mohammad Khatami also voiced concern that Mr Ahmadinejad was exceeding his powers. In a sign of divisions at the top of the clerical establishment, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has until now supported Mr Ahmadinejad, said "irregularities" in the government's behaviour would not be tolerated.... "There is a very tense situation. Ahmadinejad has made a very bad start and needs to get attuned to political realities," the Iranian source said, suggesting that Mr Ahmadinejad could face impeachment proceedings in the majlis if he continued to pack the government with his appointees. But the source said western threats of economic sanctions or military action against Iran were strengthening Mr Ahmadinejad at the expense of moderate conservatives, liberals and reformers. The Bush administration has blunted that last problem. The interesting question is how Ahmadi-Nejad will react. Developing..... UPDATE: Tim Worstall is more optimistic than I am about the intrinsic value of the proposed deal: What we're all worried about is Iran building a bomb. We really don't care if they make low enriched uranium for a reactor. So, if the enrichment is going to take place elsewhere (assuming we trust the Russians) then we can know that they are indeed only getting the low enriched, the stuff that doesn't go bang. Two things -- 1) I don't trust the Russians when it comes to Middle East politics; and 2) according to the FT story, the reprocessing would take place in a Russian plant "under part-Iranian management." That doesn't make me feel any better either. Over at NRO, Andrew Stuttaford is more pessimistic than I am: The more I think about it, the more obvious it is that we are going to have to learn to live with the ghastly prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. The idea of 'taking out' Iran's nuclear facilities is a fantasy, and it is a dangerous fantasy in that it is a substitute for real thought. Sanctions are unlikely to do much (who will support them?) and the long-waited Iranian revolution never quite seems to materialize. As a practical matter, of course, the real nightmare is not that Iran will start launching nuclear missiles at anyone (despite all the overheated rhetoric), but that elements in the regime will be tempted to hand over nuclear materials to terrorist groups who share their ideology but cannot be linked to any one state. Do that, and the usual rules of deterrence do not apply. Admittedly, stories like this VOA one buttress Stuttaford's point about the radical nature of the Iranian regime. And Stuttsford is making the same end-game point I've made before. However, I'm slightly more optimistic for three reasons: 1) It's not clear how far along Iran has gone in its nuclear program (click here as well); 2) As stated above, Ahmadi-Nejad is the perfect kind of leader to cause greater cooperation among the other nuclear powers; and 3) Ahmadi-Nejad might just be the perfect kind of leader to provoke a mass revolt.