Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk says not to get your hopes up (if your hopes were up):
Robert Naiman gets off the best line, even if it isnâ??t quite fair, saying â??Itâ??s Gollllllll! for Lula Against Western Push for Iran Sanctions.â?Naimanâ??s comment is unfair because the nominal intent of sanctions is to press Iran to behave better. If Iran complies, then you donâ??t need the sanctions.
On the other hand, there is less to Iranâ??s agreement than meets the eye. Although Naiman thinks the US should accept the offer, I am not so sure. Indeed, I worry that the Zombie Fuel Swap is, to extend the metaphor, an â??own goal.â?
The US position has been that it is â??openâ? to such an arrangement, but that â??the details matter.â? In this case, the details are how much LEU Iran has produced in the interim and whether Iran continues feeding the remaining LEU into the cascades to produce ~20 percent enriched uranium. (Iran has previously said that enrichment to that level â?? for the TRR reactor fuel â?? is without respect to any fuel swap.)
The Iran-Turkey-Brazil agreement is for 1200 kilograms of LEU â?? but that leaves about the same amount (Iran had produced a total of 2,065 kg as of January 29, 2010 and today should about 2400 kg) back in Iran. The US seems to think Iran enriching this material to ~20 percent is a deal breaker.
In other words this is the kind of deal that is okay to countries - like Brazil and Turkey - that aren't terribly concerned with Iran's nuclear program.
