Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been quiet, relatively speaking, since his contested reelection on June 12 of last year. Most Iran analysts and experts believe the regime's various power players to be torn over how to handle western rapprochement alongside internal unrest. One theory, articulated here (PDF) by Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute, is that the nuclear negotiations offer Ahmadinejad a platform from which he can strengthen his own credibility and simultaneously deflate the Green Movement. Any deal brokered by Ahmadinejad - or his hand Saeed Jalili - will be viewed as a feather in the president's cap, and thus hurts the Iranian opposition's ability to challenge his legitimacy. The longer Iran delays such a deal, so the theory goes, the more time the Green Movement has to marginalize Ahmadinejad and threaten his position.
With large protests expected next week, it looks as though Ahmadinejad may be feeling the heat:
'The deal, which Iran formally rejected weeks ago, would swap low-enriched uranium for fuel for a research reactor that produces medical isotopes. "If we allow them to take it, there is no problem," Ahmadinejad said on state TV. "We sign a contract to give 3.5 percent enriched uranium and receive 20 percent enriched ones after four or five months."U.S. officials reacted cautiously to Ahmadinejad's remarks, which came a day after France assumed the presidency of the U.N. Security Council. France, along with the United States, Britain and Germany, are pushing hard for additional Security Council sanctions against Tehran for failing to agree to talks on its nuclear ambitions; any sudden interest in diplomacy by Iran might be intended to persuade China, a skeptic of sanctions, to block them, diplomats said. U.S. officials had viewed the proposal involving the research reactor as a test of whether a broader diplomatic deal could be broached on Iran's nuclear programs.
'
Several things could be at play here. Just yesterday, Green figurehead Mir-Hossein Mousavi appeared to up his rhetoric on the government's behavior, calling its crackdown of predominantly peaceful protesters dictatorial. Tehran may also assume that the slightly shifting environment at the UN could work against them, and the deal presently on the table may be the best they're going to get on the LEU.
But as State Dept. spokesman P.J. Crowley noted, Iran has said yes to a deal in the past, only to recant. It also remains unclear if Ahmadinejad even possesses the authority to approve this deal.
We'll see. Even if this nuclear fuel swap were to (finally) go down, it's just the tip of a large diplomatic iceberg in need of addressing with the Islamic Republic.
(AP Photo)