Wariness Persists over Iran Nuke Deal

Is Iran finally playing fair?

The draft agreement announced Wednesday after more than two days of negotiations in Vienna puts the international community tantalizingly close to a measure that would slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear bomb.

Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, thinks Iranian leaders will follow the lead of their Vienna negotiators and approve the agreement on Friday. "They are under pressure at home and want to get the international community off their back," he says.

Hans Punz, AP

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei speaks in Vienna after talks ended in a draft agreement calling for Iran to ship out most of its enriched uranium for treatment abroad. The deal now goes to Tehran and other capitals for approval.

But he warns that Iran "has a long history of aggressively attempting to modify existing agreements." And while the deal initialed in Vienna could put an estimated 75 percent of Iran's known stockpile of enriched uranium out of reach of any weapons program, he says, "it doesn't resolve the underlying issue that Iran hasn't stopped enriching uranium."

The draft, worked out at the International Atomic Energy Agency among representatives of the U.S., France, Russia and Iran, is the culmination of a novel approach devised in large part by the Obama administration.

The deal hinges on Iran's need to fuel its research reactor in suburban Tehran, which produces nuclear isotopes used in the treatment of thyroid conditions and other medical problems. The facility was built by the Americans before the 1979 Islamic revolution. It now runs on fuel -- 19.7 percent enriched uranium -- provided by Argentina, but the stocks are set to run out in the course of next year.

Under the agreement, the IAEA would provide Iran with the fuel it needs for that perfectly legal reactor -- provided the source uranium comes from Iran's own controversial stockpiles, which the IAEA and Western governments have long suspected are ultimately intended for weapons production. Experts have estimated that at its current enrichment capacity, it would take Iran about a year to replace that stockpile of low-enriched uranium.

According to sources close to the negotiations, the agreement stipulates that before Dec. 31, a single shipment of 2,640 pounds of that Iranian uranium, already enriched to a level of 3.5 percent, would be sent to Russia for further enrichment, then to France to be fashioned into fuel elements suited only for the research reactor. That would put three-quarters of Iran's known enriched uranium supply out of commission for weapons use, but it wouldn't stop any ongoing enrichment.

One other condition for the agreement, say sources who have seen the draft, is that Iran allow inspectors into a uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom that had been secret until several months ago. IAEA inspectors are supposed to have access to the facility by the end of October.

Complying with all that -- the delivery of the uranium in a single batch, the deadline, and the Qom inspection -- could be more than the Iranians are willing to do. "It's not a done, closed deal," noted a former senior Israeli government official, adding that even if Tehran signs on, "it's not an overriding solution to the Iranian nuclear problem."

He says the Vienna agreement doesn't quell concerns about Iran's ongoing enrichment efforts, noting that the recent revelation of the Qom facility "showed that if anyone thought the Iranians transformed their policy to a policy of cooperation as opposed to concealment, that wasn't the case."

Many others familiar with the Iran issue remain wary. "I think the most likely scenario is still Iran dragging its feet and trying to divide the international community," says Bruno Tertrais, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris and a former adviser on nuclear strategy to the French Defense Ministry. "I'd be very surprised if a final deal were concluded and implemented."

Earlier this week, Iran tried to exclude France from the Vienna talks, arguing that it is "not a trustworthy partner." The move, broadly seen as an attempt to sow discord among Western powers, didn't work: France kept its place at the table. But the effort underlined a remarkable role reversal of the United States and France in recent months.

Hardliners in the Bush administration sometimes characterized Europe's negotiating stance as too accommodating. Now it's France that seems to wonder whether Washington is disposed to be firm enough.

The French press has reported that President Nicolas Sarkozy was frustrated over U.S. President Barack Obama's unwillingness to confront Iran over the Qom facility at last month's U.N. General Assembly. And even if the agreement to ship out most of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile comes to fruition, the next step remains uncertain.

"One reason France is concerned is that we see American tactics, but not an overall strategy toward Iran," says Tertrais. "And that concern will continue as long as there's no strategy in place."

Obama began his administration with promises of a policy to engage Iran, but the contours of that policy have been blurred by the revelation of the Qom facility and by concerns over Tehran's brutal treatment of demonstrators after contested elections in June.

With additional reporting by Andrea Stone in Washington