The New York Times reported October 29 that Iran had rejected a deal designed to resolve its longstanding impasse with the international community over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.
The Times says, "Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday that it would not accept a plan its negotiators agreed to last week to send its stockpile of uranium out of the country, according to diplomats in Europe and American officials briefed on Iran’s response. The apparent rejection of the deal could unwind President Obama’s effort to buy time to resolve the nuclear standoff."
So what's next? Russia and China have both said they will not go along with more stringent sanctions against Iran, and the United States' European allies will not sign up for military action against Iran. That leaves unilateral sanctions from the United States, which have thus far been ineffective, a military strike by the United States, a military strike by Israel, a joint American - Israeli military strike, or the acceptance of Iran as a nuclear power. My money's on the last option.
The Times continues, "In public, neither the Iranians nor the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, revealed the details of Iran’s objections, which came only hours after Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, insisted that 'we are ready to cooperate' with the West."
What he's leaving out is that Iran is ready to cooperate, but only if that cooperation is on Iran's terms.
"But the European and American officials said that Iranian officials had refused to go along with the central feature of the draft agreement reached on Oct. 21 in Vienna: a provision that would have required the country to send about three-quarters of its current known stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Russia to be processed and returned for use in a reactor in Tehran used to make medical isotopes. If Iran’s stated estimate of its stockpile of nuclear fuel is accurate, the deal that was negotiated in Vienna would leave the country with too little fuel to manufacture a weapon until the stockpile was replenished with additional fuel, which Iran is producing in violation of United Nations Security Council mandates."
President Obama has said a nuclear-armed Iran is not acceptable. Unfortunately, there is probably not sufficient political or public support for military action, meaning that ultimately, a nuclear-armed Iran will be a reality, whether that is termed "acceptable" or not.
"A senior European official characterized the Iranian response as 'basically a refusal.' The Iranians, he said, want to keep all of their lightly enriched uranium in the country until receiving fuel bought from the West for the reactor in Tehran. 'The key issue is that Iran does not agree to export its lightly enriched uranium,' the official said. 'That’s not a minor detail. That’s the whole point of the deal.'"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/world/middleeast/30nuke.html?_r=3&ref=todayspaper
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 9
Mooch
Despite the Leftist BS over the years, Bush tried the exact same route with Iran and it failed miserably. Obama again has found out that talk has it's well defined limits as does dependence on allies who want the luxury of being called that without having to pony up in return.
So what do we do? Realistically nothing. Saber rattling from Obama looks ridiculous and honestly our country does not have the political will to do anything more. We don't need another war front and China/Russia have a veto on our non military actions. Obama could issue a simple threat to glass who ever tosses the first nuke (an indirect threat to Iran) but with no ABM system in any realistic time schedule now planned (eastern Europe already told Biden they won't stand up again after the last time) that is the limit we can do. Iran won.
I am afraid that the US is going to be sitting ducks.