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Iran Negotiates a Nuclear Bomb

(Washington Post) - Ray Takeyh - A subtle shift is emerging in the Islamic Republic's nuclear calculus. Officials in Tehran increasingly sense that it may be easier to get the bomb through an agreement than by pursuing it outside the parameters of a deal. To an extent that Iranian officials even contemplate a nuclear deal, they stress that it has to be predicated on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In Iran's telling, the treaty grants it the right to construct an extensive nuclear apparatus featuring a vast enrichment capacity. Iran's craving for nuclear science would be satiated while the West gains an ability to closely monitor its activities. The problem is that such an agreement may yet prove Iran's most suitable path to the bomb. As part of any realistic agreement, the United States and its allies must impose serious curbs on Iran's nuclear ambitions. This implies that Iran cannot maintain enriched uranium and must export all of its accumulated stock for reprocessing abroad. Given that he seems disinclined to adjust his objective of nuclear empowerment, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is confident of his strategy: In the past decade he has managed to cross successive Western "red lines." Through similar persistence and patience, he perceives that he can once more obtain the deal that he wants - a deal that is a prelude to the bomb.
2012-06-18 00:00:00
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