Obama's Iran policy near collapse

Time:

President Obama’s policy of diplomatic engagement with Iran is close to collapse as Tehran backtracks on a crucial deal aimed at cutting its stockpiles of nuclear fuel.

Iran agreed a deal “in principle” at talks in Geneva to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium overseas for reprocessing into nuclear fuel that could be used for a medical research reactor.

A deal outlining this was finalised in Vienna this week and a deadline of midnight tonight was set for the agreement to be sealed with Tehran.

The framework deal, along with an offer to allow international inspectors into its newly-revealed enrichment plant at Qom, was hailed as evidence that Iran was responding positively to the diplomatic track.

Today, however, with just hours until the deadline, Iran has turned the table on its foreign interlocutors with a rival proposal, demanding that it be allowed to buy higher enriched uranium directly from abroad.

Later, the Islamic Republic issued a statement saying that it would report to Mohammed El Baradei, the UN's atomic watchdog, next week.

"Iran is precisely examining different dimensions of the contents of the proposed agreement about the provisional supply of fuel for the Tehran research reactor,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the UN atomic watchdog, was quoted as saying on state television’s website.

“After final evaluation, I will give the result to Mr. ElBaradei when I return to Vienna next week."

Tehran’s proposals fall far short of the deal drawn up in Vienna by the United Nations atomic watchdog and endorsed by the UN, the US, Russia and France. It would not only fail to reduce Iran’s stockpile of low enriched uranium — now large enough to fuel one nuclear warhead — but it would also require the waiver of pre-existing UN sanctions.

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Tehran’s latest move comes straight from a well-thumbed Iranian playbook and looks like yet another stalling tactic to test the West’s resolve and buy time to avert new sanctions. But Western patience is growing thinner by the day, with diplomats warning that the apparent breakthrough in Geneva on October 1 may be less positive than it first seemed.

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I think Obama has infinite patience with Iran as long as he can avoid make a decision on doing something substantive. I think he is willing to continue to chat with them while the stall for times. The only thing surprising I find about these talks is that Iran actually went through the motions for awhile.