Iran's enrichment program: "intransigence" or US stupidity?

By Cyrus Safdari | Iran Affairs | June 25, 2012

So as was expected, the Iran-bashers like Ray Takeyh are busy trying to blame the failure of the Moscow talks on “Iranian intransigence” — as if Iran’s completely legitimate expectation that the talks would proceed on the basis of the relevant international treaty AS PROMISED (which includes recognition of the right to enrich uranium) is somehow just too crazy and far out to be acknowledged. God forbid that the US should have to abide by international law, after all. Hey, remember this?

“We have agreed that the Non-Proliferation Treaty forms a key basis for what must be serious engagement to ensure all the obligations under the treaty are met by Iran while fully respecting Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said following the meeting with Iran’s top negotiator, Saeed Jalili.

LOL. Ashton baby, you’re such a good comedienne.

And naturally the media are busy repeating the standard talking points about how the negotiations fell apart because Iran was “intransigent” about giving up their 20% enrichment.

Apart from the lie about the talks proceeding on the basis of the NPT, what the media completely fail to mention, of course, is that the US would never have had to negotiate over the 20% enriched uranium in the first place had the US not interferred in Iran’s right to simply purchase the reactor fuel it needed for the Tehran Research Reactor — a reactor, by the way, which is not only NOT a nuclear weapons proliferation threat at all (the reactor operates under IAEA safeguards, and is also entirely too small to be a weapons threat) but is also used to make isotopes to treat Iran’s 800,000 cancer patients. In short, the US has shot itself in the foot by denying Iran’s right to buy the fuel, and now has to negotiate in the hopes to convince Iran to give up 20% enrichment. What a success! This is never even mentioned or considered in the media analyses. Instead the expectation that Iran should give up enrichment, and is “intransigent” for not doing so as the US demands, is simply taken for granted in the reports/analyses.

Related articles

• Where are the Iran talks heading after Moscow? (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Iranian intransigence and the US election (blogs.ft.com)

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