20060531
    There has been much news made out of Secretary Rice’s announcement today that the US is willing to enter multilateral talks with Iran if Iran stops its current uranium enrichment program. While it is interesting that the US Government is now openly stating this policy, this policy is neither new nor unique.
    The US has always had a policy with Iran that favors multilateral negotiations that can only begin when Iran abandons its pursuit of large-scale uranium enrichment as it agreed to do via international agreement. Whether that negotiation happens in the context of the IAEA, the UN, or the EU with the US is irrelevant to the fact that the US has always insisted that Iran’s continued uranium enrichment is a barrier to further diplomacy.
    Of course, that barrier is the real crux of the matter for Iran, the US, and the world. If Iran were seeking only a civilian nuclear energy program, then the issue of enriching uranium would be irrelevant. Many other nations, most of which do not possess nuclear weapons, have civilian nuclear energy programs that do not require them to process enriched uranium in any quantities, let alone the quantities that Iran plans to enrich.
    In fact, the truth is that Iran’s uranium enrichment program is directly intended for the purpose of enriching sufficient quantities of sufficient quality uranium to build nuclear weapons. What other reason would Iran have for wanting to procure or build as many as 54,000 uranium hexafluoride centrifuges, mining significant quantities of domestic uranium– almost all of which is destined for enrichment-, or building and procuring classes of intermediate range ballistic missiles which have the specific capability of carrying nuclear warheads?
    So, for these obvious reasons, the US has engaged in the policy of demanding that Iran cease uranium enrichment before any diplomatic endeavors involving the US can begin. This policy is really little different from the policy currently taken with North Korea, who has nuclear weapons because the US entered into bilateral talks with that nation without verifiable assurances that its nuclear weapons program had ended. Such lessons learned are rarely forgotten.
    Of course, Iran’s true motive is also revealed in its almost immediate reaction to the US offer, which was characterized as a ‘propaganda move’ by the Iranian government. Instead of considering the offer, perhaps even offering the responsive diplomatic offer of the temporary suspension of uranium enrichment activities, the Iranians vowed to continue their current path, regardless of international pressure.
    In the end, this diplomatic tango reveals the nature of unilateral diplomacy- it is almost always destined to fail. Like the despotic regimes it is often compared to, the government of Iran uses diplomacy as yet another weapon in its arsenal to compete on a world stage that should have long ago voted it off. In the end, that removal will likely come by force, because such actors rarely take diplomatic hints.
    That, of course, is the other thing that Secretary Rice said today, if one chooses to read between the lines. The next paragraph after, ‘Stop enriching uranium and come to the bargaining table,†is, “Or the far more painful options on the table will have to come into consideration.†Want to guess which kind of diplomacy will win out with Iran?
DLH
