Bush Faces Tough Nuke Diplomacy
Iran has failed to answer all of the IAEA's questions about its nuclear work, reduced IAEA inspectors' access to nuclear sites, and defied two United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding that it freeze its nuclear-fuel work. It is rapidly expanding the number of operational centrifuges—the fast-spinning machines that enrich uranium—and may have 3,000 running by the end of the year.
Separately, some U.S. allies are quietly discussing a possible compromise on their common demand that Iran freeze all nuclear-fuel work before negotiations (involving the United States for the first time) begin, as the Associated Press has reported. The alternative would be some kind of partial freeze. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has suggested that the moment has passed when it was possible to require Iran to halt all nuclear activities—an assertion that angered the Bush administration.
Maintaining a common approach against the Iranian nuclear drive could become increasingly difficult.
Security Council members Russia and China seem to be arriving at the same conclusion about softening their position on Iran. "Iran is not going to abandon what it already has," said Alexei Arbatov, a security expert with the Russian Academy of Sciences and a consultant to Russia's foreign and defense ministries.
Arbatov, speaking for himself at the Carnegie conference, argued that "the unity of the United Nations Security Council is very superficial and shallow, and that's why the [sanctions] resolutions are so weak."
Though the Bush administration wants to seek a third—and tougher—Security Council sanctions resolution, it may soon face uncomfortable pressures to ease its own stand on Iran.
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