US drives a wedge between Russia, Iran

Iran has shot itself in the foot again. This time they rejected the proposal that I covered last week in which, Iran would be allowed to carry out an initial step in making nuclear fuel—converting uranium ore into the uranium hexafluoride gas that is the feedstock for making enriched uranium - but enrichment itself would be done in Russia. This was a plan that the US and EU could have lived with. Instead, the AP reported Sunday that, "The head of Iran's nuclear agency ruled out a compromise proposal that uranium enrichment for his country's controversial nuclear programme be carried out in Russia, saying Saturday that enrichment must be done in Iran..."

The Russians are a little upset. Right now their foreign policy seems to be one of playing both sides of the world against each other. They do business with the US and the EU, as well as China and Venezuela. Then there's Iran, which is also a strategic partner. It's a good plan but then theoretically so was doing business with Saddam Hussein and we all know how that turned out.

As Scott Ritter and I have stated in previous posts, history seems to be repeating itself with regards to a military intervention in Tehran. For example, much like Colin Powell's Powerpoint presentation, the US are running around with a "laptop" allegedly containing evidence of a plan to create nuclear warheads small enough to fit their Shahab missiles. To paraphrase Whitesnake, "Here we go again."

This latest rejection by the mullahs only gives the UN Ambassador John Bolton more cause to call for war against Iran in the UN Security Council. I stated last week that the Russians and the Chinese have too much to lose if the US does indeed attack Iran. This past weekend I had the pleasure of talking to two US Marines whom were on leave from Iraq and the scuttlebutt from them is that the US military is already planning an "Afghanistan style" invasion of Iran sometime in the near future. Our intentions is to either support a homegrown resistance militia in the same vein as the Northern Alliance or if that can't be accomplished just move the troops stationed in Iraq over to Iran. This is all conjecture mind you, but it's what they told me they've heard so I figured I'd report it.

Now Russia has to start making some hard choices. Moscow has to find a way to get its "ally" to comply with international demands or it must come face to face once again with more American troops in its backyard.

For more on this conundrum, here's the story:

Later this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will debate the Iran issue, and already in the welter of competing interests and considerations riveting the attention of the IAEA's governing board, the issue of where Russia stands has gained a unique prominence.
This is because Russia is Iran's sole nuclear partner and, until now, the only major power explicitly acknowledging Iran's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-based right to the full nuclear fuel cycle. Moscow has clear economic and geostrategic vested interests with Iran, has consented to Iran's observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and is disinclined to join the US-European Union cooperation vis-a-vis Iran.

However, there are strong indications that Russia's position on Iran's nuclear program is less than iron-clad, and that might explain the latest bite in US-EU diplomacy meant to weaken Moscow's opposition to sending Iran's nuclear dossier to the United Nations Security Council, and, perhaps, to achieve a Russian turnaround to the detriment of Tehran's interests.

According to reports, the US and European governments dealing with Iran on the nuclear issue (Britain, France and Germany) have hammered out a new proposal that calls for Iran's nuclear fuel fabrication on Russian soil. Under the plan, Iran would continue to operate its uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, which converts raw uranium to uranium hexafluoride. That gas would then be shipped to Russia, where it would be enriched to a level suitable for use in nuclear power generation but not for nuclear weapons.

In this manner, Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, which is where it is feared the highly enriched uranium needed to build a nuclear weapon could be produced, would be circumvented.

This proposal, which is reportedly still being worked out and yet somehow leaked to the world press, will most likely meet Iran's rejection in light of Tehran's determined stance to protect what it considers to be its "inalienable right" as per the articles of the NPT. The new proposal has been tailored less to garner an Iranian positive reaction and more to solicit a Russian turnaround from its unconditional support for Iran's right to enrich uranium, and it is far from certain that it will fail, due to the following reasons.

First, contrary to appearances, there is no Russian "groupthink" on Iran's nuclear program that would be immune to such concerted efforts led by Washington. Russia is occasionally reminded of the perils of a nuclear-armed Iran, and the recent Iranian announcement of willingness to share nuclear technology with other Muslim nations cannot possibly be music to the ears of Moscow policy leaders grappling with their home-gown threats of Muslim extremism. More