At pretty well the moment when the G-8 leaders were preparing to leave their St. Petersburg summit and after they had agreed that Iran should be referred again to the UN Security Council for failing to take seriously any negotiations over its nuclear fuel enrichment program, Iran announced that it was interested in talking.
Those in the USA who regard Iran as part of the so-called Axis of Evil, will not be disposed to take this latest announcement from Tehran at all seriously. They will claim that it is yet another delaying tactic, timed, or mistimed, depending on your point of view, to coincide with the departing limousines of the G-8 leaders, thus giving them no chance to try and put together an agreed response.
Yet Iran’s assertion that it now sees a proposed Western incentive package as an “acceptable basis” for talks on stopping its weapons-grade nuclear fuel-enrichment program appears to have been aimed directly at the G-8. There was even apparently a suggestion that the leaders would care to come on to Tehran from St. Petersburg to negotiate.
If that were correct, Iran’s leaders should know very well that this is not the way that high level diplomacy works, not least when the great and good of the G-8 would be committing themselves to a process where the outcome was by no means certain.
Yet Tehran’s proposals should not be dismissed out of hand. If, as the Americans suspect, it is yet another delaying ploy, a few weeks or months before the Security Council is invited to reconsider what may still be Iran’s refusal to comply with her international obligations, are in truth neither here nor there. It is far better that people keep talking rather than move toward a confrontation where nothing will be certain, except that it will be extremely dangerous both for the region and the world.
There may be two reasons for Iran’s apparent change of tack. The first is the little reported technical problems that its nuclear scientists have been having with the fuel enrichment process. Well-placed sources maintain that the successful first enrichment in April used high grade feed stock imported from China. Subsequent difficulties with the centrifuges central to the process and a seeming lack of further Chinese high-grade uranium may have convinced the Iranians that they need help. If indeed their fuel-enrichment program is purely for peaceful power generation purposes, then the thinking in Iran may be that now is the moment to drive for the most generous incentive package possible to complete the project.
The second reason may be that despite its threats of retaliation should Israel escalate its violence to attack Syria or worse Iran, the Tehran government appreciates the intense danger in further Israeli aggression. By moving back toward the negotiating table, the Iranians may be hoping that they have robbed the Israelis of an excuse to attack its nuclear facilities, whether on its own account or on behalf of its US paymasters.
