Iran Agrees to IAEA Inspections of Qom Facility

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October 2, 2009

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Iran Agrees to Send Enriched Uranium to Russia - New York Times [link]

  • Iran agreed on Thursday in talks with the United States and other major powers to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection in the next two weeks and to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium outside Iran to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes, senior American and other Western officials said.
  • Despite the uncertainties, nuclear experts hailed the tentative agreements. “It’s significant,” David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said. “The principle is important.”
  • Note: the Institute for Science and International Security is a Ploughshares grantee.
     

President Obama's Remarks on the P5+1 Regarding Iran - The White House [link]

  • The P5+1 is united, and we have an international community that has reaffirmed its commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament. That’s why the Iranian government heard a clear and unified message from the international community in Geneva: Iran must demonstrate through concrete steps that it will live up to its responsibilities with regard to its nuclear program.
  • We’re committed to serious and meaningful engagement. But we’re not interested in talking for the sake of talking. If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely, and we are prepared to move towards increased pressure.

Time for Diplomacy to End the Stand-Off with Iran - Senator John Kerry in the Financial Times [link]

  • For our diplomacy to have any success, two things are vital:
    • First, if Iran is not willing to negotiate in good faith, it must understand the consequences. Pressure is not an alternative to engagement; the two strategies complement each other.
    • Second, we must be willing to take yes for an answer. An important lesson of Iraq is that intrusive inspections can work.
  • The international community is finally in a position to force Iran to choose either pariah status or a more constructive relationship with America and the world. Certainly the real possibility of either military conflict or a nuclear-armed Iran compels us to give diplomacy a chance. 

Poland, Czech Republic May Get Roles in Missile Defense - Washington Post [link]

  • On Thursday, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen O. Tauscher, told the House Armed Services Committee that the new plan, which is to use ship-based Aegis radars and their related Standard missile interceptors, would be "a very robust system that deals with the current threat now and protects NATO allies first.
  • She added, "We have offered the Poles a future piece of the SM-3 [Standard missile-3] deployment" and "we're working on a number of different things" for the Czechs. Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly, director of the Defense Missile Agency, who also appeared at the session, said one possibility was putting command and control facilities in the Czech Republic.
  • Click to read the full testimony of General James Cartwright and Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher and Lt. General Patrick O'Reilly.

A View from the Dark Side

Obama's French Lesson - Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post [link]

  • When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom.
  • Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.
  • Why forgo the opportunity? Because Obama wanted the Security Council meeting to be about his own dream of a nuclear-free world.

The Lighter Side

Pinukechio - John Sherffius in the Boulder Camera (via Slate) [link]