Iranian negotiators on Wednesday expressed support for a deal that — if accepted by their leaders — would delay Tehran's ability to make nuclear weapons by sending most of its existing enriched uranium to Russia for processing, diplomats said.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said that representatives of Iran and its three interlocutors — the U.S., Russia and France — had accepted the draft for forwarding to their capitals. ElBaradei said he hoped for approval from all four countries by Friday.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate, praised the draft, saying it was "on the right track," while emphasizing that senior Iranian officials in Tehran still had to sign off on it.
By taking the Uranium out of Iran's hands, it is thought, we prevent them from diverting it to weapons use while out of Iran.
Of course, the Iranian "concession" may be nothing of the sort:
Since you're probably not a regular reader of the trade publication Nucleonics Week, let me summarize an article that appeared in its Oct. 8 issue. It reported that Iran's supply of low-enriched uranium -- the potential feedstock for nuclear bombs -- appears to have certain "impurities" that "could cause centrifuges to fail" if the Iranians try to boost it to weapons grade.
If true, that means Iran gets the West to repair their impure Uranium for civilian use while allowing Iran the option to take a year to replace the Uranium sent out of Iran with low enriched Uranium that won't threaten their centrifuges.
With Iran and ElBaradei (or am I being redundant?) agreeing this is the "right track," there's no reason to worry we'll sign on to the appearance of progress rather than admit that talking has failed, right?
Face it, we're screwed. Iran will pretend to stop seeking nuclear weapons and we'll happily pretend to believe them if it means we can avoid a tough decision on how to stop Iran.
UPDATE: Interesting:
Iran on Friday failed to accept a U.N.-drafted plan that would ship most of the country's uranium abroad for enrichment, saying instead it would prefer to buy the nuclear fuel it needs for a reactor that makes medical isotopes.
So what's Iran's game? Avoiding agreeing too easily to make it seem like sending impure low-enriched Uranium abroad for enriching is an actual concession to us?
Or are they greedy and confident enough to believe we'll offer concessions to get them to agree to a proposal that benefits Iran?
