U.S. Says Plan Offers Iran Uranium Option
(Helene Cooper and Elaine Sciolino, New York Times)

Thursday, June 8
Bush administration officials said on Wednesday that the package of incentives offered to Iran could theoretically allow it to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes someday, but expressed severe doubts that Iran could satisfy the conditions that would allow it to do so.

The decision to leave that possibility open amounts to a significant shift in United States policy, because President Bush has repeatedly said that he would not allow Iran to produce nuclear fuel or to gain the knowledge necessary to build a weapon. He has insisted that all nuclear fuel for Iranian power production come from outside Iran.

But when questioned on the terms of the international proposal that the United States and its negotiating partners had offered, officials said that it would be years — if ever — before the question of allowing Iran to produce fuel would even come up.

U.S. Unveils Draft Fissile Material Treaty
(Wade Boese, Arms Control Today)

June 2006
At the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, the United States [on] May 18 unveiled a draft treaty to end production of the two essential ingredients for building nuclear weapons. But prospects for negotiations on the proposal are slim because many countries disagree with key elements of the draft and with the U.S. insistence that the conference only address this issue.

The conference, which operates by consensus, last produced an accord in 1996. Since approval that year of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, members held unfruitful negotiations for a couple of weeks in August 1998. Otherwise, they have been stalemated even on beginning formal talks. Aside from rigid divisions over what topics should be negotiated, many conference members also differ with the United States on the substance of a fissile material treaty. The two most significant issues of contention are whether the treaty should address existing stockpiles and whether it should have verification measures.

Several countries assert that a treaty on fissile materials should not only end future production for weapons but also prevent existing stockpiles from being used to build new weapons. Pakistani Ambassador Masood Khan further argued May 16 that stockpiles had to be dealt with because “inequalities should not be frozen and perpetuated.”

The U.S. draft, however, excludes stockpiles. “Existing stocks of fissile material…would be unaffected,” [then-Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation Stephen Rademaker] declared. This is a position that China and Russia recently endorsed. Rademaker also reiterated U.S. opposition to negotiating verification measures for an FMCT. He said it would be up to states to monitor each other’s compliance, and if a serious problem arose, the UN Security Council could be requested to look into the matter.

Nuclear Talks No Panacea
(Rep. Jim Paxton (R-NJ), Washington Times)

Thursday, June 8
In confronting Iran's nuclear program, it seems President Bush has taken a lesson from the 26th president Theodore Roosevelt, who believed in speaking softly while carrying a big stick. The current president must be commended for his approach to Iran -- working in concert with the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. It makes sense to pressure the Iranian regime and force the leadership to choose between a peaceful resolution together with the international community or face global isolation and punitive measures.

Stemming Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons should be at the highest of our national security priorities. A nuclear Iran would give cover for the regime to pursue military activity in the Middle East, only increase its direct support of terrorist organizations, likely supply its nuclear capabilities to proxies and terrorists, and could become a nuclear arms proliferator, like the A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan.

History teaches us we must remain skeptical and vigilant. There is considerable and mounting evidence available to convince us Iran can not be trusted. We must not be blinded by the prospect of nuclear talks with Iran. Talks will only be effective if used in concert with measures such as support of Iranian moderates, threats of stringent economic sanctions, and a shoring up of allies -- both regionally and globally to potentially isolate the regime.

Boeing Plays A Recurring Role In U.S. Diplomacy
(Ameet Sachdev, Chicago Tribune)

Wednesday, June 7
Food and fighter jets have long been part of American diplomacy. Now you can add airplane parts. A package of incentives aimed at persuading Iran to curb its nuclear program reportedly includes spare parts from Chicago-based Boeing Co. It's nothing trivial for Iran. Its aging fleet of civilian and military aircraft has suffered several deadly crashes in recent years, a miserable safety record Iranian officials blame on U.S. trade sanctions that prevent the country from buying spare aircraft parts to do basic maintenance. Boeing has been barred from inspecting Iran's aircraft inventory, which includes 747 jumbo jets.

For Boeing, the potential sales to Iran have high symbolic value but offer little in the way of business promise. The U.S. isn't expected to lift trade sanctions to allow sales of new planes to Iran. But Boeing is a willing to be a bargaining chip in the diplomatic efforts to resolve a nuclear standoff with Iran.

Defense and aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. long have been standard pieces of the U.S. diplomatic tool kit. Diplomacy almost always involves opening up sales of technologies or goods that the U.S. has in abundance.

Boeing jets were key to the opening of relations with China in the 1970s under President Nixon after years of isolation from the Communist regime there. Since then, China has become one of the company's biggest buyers as its travel market explodes.

From the International Press:

Now, How About Some Iranian Reciprocity?
(Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star)

Wednesday, June 7
The American neoconservatives who have driven policy in the Middle East for the past five years blinked on Iran last week, and made an offer to engage Tehran directly and diplomatically. Iran is Washington's first serious political challenge since 2001. The American response suggests that the neocons' hold on power is changing slowly but steadily, and that the Bush administration is capable of clear thinking and diplomatic sobriety when it puts its mind to it. This dynamic is not primarily about Iranian nuclear power and weapons. It is also about the nature of American power, and how that power is projected around the world and subsequently resisted by the world.

The new offer on nuclear power, trade, security and other issues that was handed to Iran on Tuesday by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is an important symbol of Washington's evolving worldview. The American foreign policy-making team is slightly humbled, having been stunned by the realization that Iran almost singlehandedly resisted both many years of American-Israeli threats, and recent years of European and United Nations diplomatic engagement, cajoling, inspections, and mild intimidation. Iran achieved significant technical breakthroughs in enriching small amounts of low-grade uranium, despite Western threats, warnings and constraints. Washington has grasped that its aggressive policies failed and that more of the same would lead only to new failure.

So it is important to acknowledge the change in the American position vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear ambitions in the offer to Iran this week. We should give the US a small round of applause for behaving with more realism than romanticism, and more maturity than militarism.

US Think-tank Suggests Compromise on N-deal
(Arun Kumar, Hindustan Times)

Wednesday, June 7
In a new report released on Wednesday, Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based independent, national membership organisation and a non-partisan centre for scholars, says it was suggesting the two-stage approach as an enduring strategic partnership cannot be founded upon legislative action taken grudgingly.

The authors thus suggest that Congress should adopt a two-stage approach: formally endorsing the deal's basic framework, while delaying final approval until it is assured that critical non-proliferation needs are met.

The Bush administration has stirred deep passions and put Congress in the seemingly impossible bind of choosing between approving the deal and damaging nuclear non-proliferation, or rejecting the deal and thereby setting back an important strategic relationship. But this is a false choice, they argue.

Levi and Ferguson advise Congress to reserve the bulk of its political capital for a handful of top-tier objectives. It should focus on preventing Indian nuclear testing and fundamental changes in Indian nuclear strategy, rather than on blocking growth in the number of Indian nuclear weapons.

Links of Interest

U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation: A Strategy for Moving Forward
Michael A. Levi and Charles D. Ferguson, Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, June 2006

Iran's Nuclear Ambitions: Chronology of Key Events
Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2006