The Wall Wall Journal
Ahmadinejad and Lula expose Obamas hapless diplomacy.
What a fiasco. Thats the first word that comes to mind watching Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raise his arms yesterday with the leaders of Turkey and Brazil to celebrate a new atomic pact that instantly made irrelevant 16 months of President Obamas diplomacy. The deal is a political coup for Tehran and possibly delivers the coup de grace to the Wests half-hearted efforts to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
Full credit for this debacle goes to the Obama Administration and its hapless diplomatic strategy. Last October nine months into its engagement with Tehran the White House concocted a plan to transfer some of Irans uranium stock abroad for enrichment. If the West couldnt stop Irans program the thinking was that maybe this scheme would delay it. The Iranians played coy then refused to accept the offer.
But Mr. Obama doesnt take no for an answer from rogue regimes and so he kept the offer on the table. As the U.S. finally seemed ready to go to the U.N. Security Council for more sanctions the Iranians chose yesterday to accept the deal on their own limited terms while enlisting the Brazilians and Turks as enablers and political shields. Diplomacy emerged victorious today declared Brazils President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva turning Mr. Obamas own most important foreign-policy principle against him.
The double embarrassment is that the U.S. had encouraged Lulas diplomacy as a step toward winning his support for U.N. sanctions. Brazil is currently one of the nonpermanent rotating members of the Security Council and the U.S. has wanted a unanimous U.N. vote. Instead Lula used the opening to triangulate his own diplomatic solution. In her first game of high-stakes diplomatic poker Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leaving the table dressed only in a barrel.
So instead of the U.S. and Europe backing Iran into a corner this spring Mr. Ahmadinejad has backed Mr. Obama into one. Americas discomfort is obvious. In its statement yesterday the White House strained to acknowledge the efforts by Turkey and Brazil while noting Irans repeated failure to live up to its own commitments. The White House also sought to point out differences between yesterdays pact and the original October agreements on uranium transfers.
Good luck drawing those distinctions with the Chinese or Russians who will now be less likely to agree even to weak sanctions. Having played so prominent a role in last Octobers talks with Iran the U.S. cant easily disassociate itself from something broadly in line with that framework.
Under the terms unveiled yesterday Iran said it would send 1200 kilograms (2646 lbs.) of low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month and no more than a year later get back 120 kilograms enriched from somewhere else abroad. This makes even less sense than the flawed October deal. In the intervening seven months Iran has kicked its enrichment activities into higher gear. Its estimated total stock has gone to 2300 kilograms from 1500 kilograms last autumn and its stated enrichment goal has gone to 20 from 3.5.
If the West accepts this deal Iran would be allowed to keep enriching uranium in contravention of previous U.N. resolutions. Removing 1200 kilograms will leave Iran with still enough low-enriched stock to make a bomb and once uranium is enriched up to 20 it is technically easier to get to bomb-capable enrichment levels.
Only last week diplomats at the U.N.s International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges it is using to enrich uranium. According to Western intelligence estimates Iran continues to acquire key nuclear components such as trigger mechanisms for bombs. Tehran says it wants to build additional uranium enrichment plants. The CIA recently reported that Iran tripled its stockpile of uranium last year and moved toward self-sufficiency in the production of nuclear missiles. Yesterdays deal will have no impact on these illicit activities.
The deal will however make it nearly impossible to disrupt Irans nuclear program short of military action. The U.N. is certainly a dead end. After 16 months of his extended hand and after downplaying support for Irans democratic opposition Mr. Obama now faces an Iran much closer to a bomb and less diplomatically isolated than when President Bush left office.
Israel will have to seriously consider its military options. Such a confrontation is far more likely thanks to the diplomatic double-cross of Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazils Lula and especially to a U.S. President whose diplomacy has succeeded mainly in persuading the worlds rogues that he lacks the determination to stop their destructive ambitions.
