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Iran Heeds Israel's Warning of Uranium "Red Line"
(Washington Post) Editorial - The latest round of negotiations on Iran's nuclear program was, by all accounts, a disappointment. Tehran's negotiators did not spell out a full response to a proposal by the U.S. and five partners for limiting its enrichment of uranium, and what they did say revealed a wide gulf between the two sides. The international coalition is offering Iran a partial lifting of sanctions in exchange for a freeze on the production of medium-enriched uranium, while Iran wants a complete lifting of sanctions in exchange for token steps that would leave its nuclear work unfettered. The Obama administration and its allies rightly refused Iranian requests to schedule further meetings. Proponents of diplomacy over war with Iran can thank Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader's explicit setting of a "red line" for the Iranian nuclear program in a speech to the UN General Assembly in September appears to have accomplished what neither negotiations nor sanctions have yielded: concrete Iranian action to limit its enrichment. A host of commentators scoffed at what they called Mr. Netanyahu's "cartoonish" picture of a bomb and the line he drew across it. The prime minister said Iran could not be allowed to accumulate enough 20% enriched uranium to produce a bomb with further processing, adding that at the rate its centrifuges were spinning, Tehran would cross that line by the middle of 2013. But then the regime began diverting some of its stockpile to the manufacture of fuel plates for a research reactor. According to the most recent report of international inspectors, in February, Iran had converted 40% of its 20% uranium for this purpose. As a result, Iran has remained distinctly below the Israeli red line. The lesson here is that clear red lines can help create the time and space for diplomacy that President Obama seeks.