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Strategic Shifts Needed in the Iran Negotiations
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Michael Singh - The six-month interim agreement with Iran increases the regime's breakout time by several weeks, but Tehran can significantly reduce that time in the long run by continuing to perfect advanced centrifuges. And by continuing missile work, it can also improve its delivery capability. Enhanced inspections increase the West's chances of detecting a breakout, but in the interim agreement, such efforts apply only to declared facilities; they provide little assurance of detecting covert facilities, where Iran would be more likely to attempt a breakout. While any long-term agreement must deal extensively with Iran's nuclear fuel fabrication activities, it must also do much more to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. U.S. negotiators should insist that any long-term accord limit Iran's research and development efforts related to enrichment, reprocessing, and weaponization, as well as its ballistic missile and space launch programs. They should also require that Tehran fully come clean regarding its past nuclear work. When U.S. negotiators characterize their own previous position that Iran must suspend all enrichment and reprocessing work as "maximalist," the implication is that it was unreasonable. This gives important negotiating leverage to Iran. Even if U.S. officials have in fact abandoned hope of requiring Iran to fully suspend enrichment, they would still be well served tactically to characterize zero enrichment as reasonable and dismiss Tehran's professed desire for a large enrichment infrastructure as unreasonable. The writer is managing director of The Washington Institute.