Do You Trust Iran and Russia?

Posted by johnhouk on Oct 22, 2009
 John R. Houk
© October 22, 2009

A negotiating team from Iran has agreed in principle to ship nuclear fuel to Russia for enrichment. The reasoning is if the nuclear fuel is in Russia then Iran would not have enough nuclear fuel to enrich to a weapons grade nuclear warhead of some sort.

The Iranian negotiating to could not give formal approval of the deal because it has to hear from the divine Shi’ite Ayatollah, I mean the leadership of the Iranian government.

Here is the thing. Iran has been rattling sabers with a ‘hands off’ attitude about their nuclear program to concerned governments (primarily Israel followed by the USA with some lesser concerns from appeasers like the UK, France and Germany). At every moment Iran needed to stall for time to reach a nuclear goal, the Mullah dominated government would express an interest at negotiation. Each negotiation was a smoke screen for all negotiation with Iran NEVER amounted to any substance.

Here is the other thing. Russia would be the guarantor of how much enriched nuclear fuel would be sent back to Iran for peaceful energy purposes. Does anyone see a snag in this logic?

Russia has been sending assassinators to the West to kill people of interest to the Russian image.

One example is the Litvinenko radiation poisoning murder carried out on British soil.

Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by Dioxin. Yushchenko believes there is a Russian connection to the poisoning that occurred during a Ukrainian Presidential campaign he eventually won.

Russia has been belligerent to its neighbors, former members of the Soviet empire and Western governments.

Russia invades its neighbor and former Soviet Republic Georgia and steals land and continues to this day to make Georgia’s life miserable. Georgia was an American ally as part of the coalition of the willing.

Russia has been provoking British air space with military flyers. Not only once but several times.

The so-called new Russia has even been testing the USA ala Cold War style. The Russian excuse is American involvement in nations formerly controlled by the old Soviet Empire. Russia is actually in the beginnings of beginning global hegemonic rivalries that was supposed to have been resolved with the fall of Soviet Communism and the rise of democratic experiments in Eastern Europe. Naturally many of these nations formerly under the domination of the old Bear Claw would be drawn to the successful institutions that have brought prosperity to America. Nationalist egotism is again beginning to threaten global peace with Russia and emerging power China showing a desire for regional hegemony.

President Barack Hussein Obama’s handling of foreign policy is playing directly into the nationalistic fervor of Russian dreams of empire. BHO more than likely feels his election mandate was to handle foreign policy less assertively than the Republican Administrations of Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. It appears BHO believes that weakening American hegemony by taking the blame for all that riles our allies and rivals alike is the path to offsetting emerging Russian nationalism.

What are nations like Russia, China and Iran to think after BHO’s first whirlwind European tour of apologizing for American intrusions that benefitted American interests while policing Western government fears. It sounds a bit like hubris but who have the Europeans turned to in the 20th century for self-preservation during devastating wars and threats of Communist despotism? That nation is the USA. Two World Wars and the existence of NATO to counter the potential aggression of Soviet Imperialist days is the evidence. American might allowed Western economies to grow and actually become competitive to the American economy as a result of American global policing.

BHO’s appeasement policy could actually provoke another global conflict with such acts as scraping Europe’s Missile Defense Shield program at Russia’s command, the policy of no pre-conditions in Iranian negotiations and forcing a threat to Israel’s existence by producing an independent Palestinian State who’s only goal is the annihilation of non-Muslim Israel.

So Iran’s nuclear negotiating team secures a plan to send nuclear fuel to Russia for enrichment. There is no doubt this will add to the myth of Messiahood to BHO’s persona. Keeping in mind the Iranian government has not actually said, “We got a deal.” Does anyone really believe Iran will stop cruising down the path of becoming a nuclear power?

JRH 10/22/09
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Iran Deal Would Slow Making of Nuclear Bombs

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 21, 2009
New York Times

VIENNA — Iranian negotiators have agreed to a draft deal that would delay the country’s ability to build a nuclear weapon for about a year, buying more time for President Obama to search for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.

Under the tentative accord hammered out in international talks here, Iran agreed to ship about three-quarters of its known stockpile of nuclear fuel to Russia for conversion into a form it could use only in a peaceful nuclear reactor, participants in the negotiations said Wednesday. But the arrangement would still have to be approved by Friday in Tehran and Washington.

If Tehran’s divided leadership agrees to the accord, which Iran’s negotiators indicated was not assured, it will remove enough nuclear fuel from Iran to delay any work on a nuclear weapon until the country can replenish its stockpile of fuel, estimated to require about one year. As such, it would buy more time for Mr. Obama to try to negotiate a more comprehensive and more difficult agreement to end Iran’s production of new nuclear material.

Obama administration officials expressed cautious optimism that the agreement could increase the chances of striking a broader diplomatic accord and put off any decision about whether to address the Iranian nuclear threat by other means, including military action. In particular, the United States is seeking to convince Israel that negotiations have reduced the risk that Iran could throw out nuclear inspectors and quickly turn its reactor fuel into bomb fuel.

“There’s a part of this that’s about getting our diplomacy with Iran started, and a part that’s about convincing the Israelis that there’s no reason to drop hints that they are going to reach for a military solution,” one senior administration official said from Washington.

The Friday deadline for Iran to respond also poses a major test for its embattled leadership, one that is “intended to explore the proposition of whether Iran really wants to negotiate its way out of this problem,” in the words of one White House official.

“We want it to make it clear we’ve made bona fide offers to the Iranians,” the official said.

The agreement was conceived as a test of Iran’s intentions. Iran claims that it needs the uranium fuel it has produced — in violation of several United Nations Security Council resolutions — for peaceful purposes, citing, among other uses, the Tehran Research Reactor, which makes medical isotopes. Iran said it needed to further enrich 2,600 pounds of uranium, which amounts to three-quarters of its claimed stockpile of the fuel, for that purpose.

Under the draft agreement, Iran would ship that fuel to Russia for further enrichment, and Russia would return it to Iran in the form of metal fuel rods. Those could be used in a reactor but not a nuclear weapon. The deal would take away enough of Iran’s existing stockpile of uranium to make it difficult to produce a nuclear weapon until it has time to produce more raw fuel.

Some White House officials argue that the Bush administration, by refusing to talk to Iran, never forced its leadership to make such a choice. If Iran rejects the accord, administration officials believe, that could make it easier to get Security Council approval for harsher financial sanctions, a step that Russia and China have steadfastly resisted so far.

The same theory applies to Iran’s behavior on Sunday, when a team of atomic energy agency inspectors is to arrive for a first look at a newly revealed nuclear enrichment plant buried deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qum. Inspectors have already asked Iran for far more than just a visit. They say they want engineering drawings, permission to interview scientists and others involved in planning the long-hidden nuclear site, and explanations about whether there are other hidden plants to feed the one at Qum with nuclear material. So far the Iranians have not responded.

Even if approved, the deal will represent only one small step toward resolving what has become one of the most complex foreign policy challenges facing Mr. Obama and the Middle East. Because Iran continues to produce nuclear fuel at a rapid clip, this accord would be only a temporary fix, though a symbolically important one.

American officials, including the head of the negotiating delegation here, Daniel B. Poneman, dodged reporters on Wednesday and declined to discuss the contents of the agreement drafted by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. He set the deadline of Friday for all sides “to give, I hope, affirmative action” to the accord, which he said was “a balanced agreement.”

Dr. ElBaradei, who is leaving his job at the end of next month, said he hoped that leaders in the West and in Tehran would “see the big picture” and approve the agreement. But his voice was tinged with doubt.

While the amount of uranium that would be exported is significant, a critical part of the agreement is the timing of the shipments. Mr. Poneman, the deputy secretary of energy, and other American officials have so far refused to discuss such issues.

“We are not going to get into the details,” said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

The energy agency’s experts said Iran would have too little fuel on hand to build a nuclear weapon for roughly a year after a shipment to Russia. But if the 2,600 pounds of fuel was shipped out of Iran in small batches instead of all at once, the experts warn, Iran would be able to replace it with new fuel almost as quickly as it leaves the country.

Also of concern is the possibility that Iran might have more nuclear fuel in its stockpile than it is letting on. The agency’s estimate that it has 3,500 pounds of low-enriched uranium “assumes that Iran has accurately declared how much fuel it possesses, and does not have a secret supply,” as one senior European diplomat put it on the sidelines of negotiations in Vienna.

Ultimately, Mr. Obama would have to get Iran to agree to give up the enrichment process as well. Otherwise, the fuel taken out of circulation in the draft accord would soon be replaced.

It was not immediately clear why a draft agreement could not be declared final. But it appeared that the Iranian delegation lacked that authority as it navigated an Iranian leadership that is clearly divided on the question of whether, and how quickly, to pursue the nuclear program.
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 Do You Trust Iran and Russia?
John R. Houk
© October 22, 2009
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Iran Deal Would Slow Making of Nuclear Bombs
A version of this article appeared in print on October 22, 2009, on page A10 of the New York edition.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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