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Iran Ignores a Lucrative Deal over Its Nuclear Activities
(Washington Post) Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz - Why hasn't Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, agreed to the offer the West put on the table in Vienna last month in negotiations over the country's nuclear activities? If the Iranians moved toward the West, tens of billions of dollars would likely start flowing into Iranian banks. Concessions by Iran could easily lead rapidly to the lifting of the EU oil embargo. Nor is the West even trying arduously to deny Tehran the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Negotiators have recognized the regime's "right" to uranium enrichment; they appear ready to accept several thousand operational centrifuges and Iran's "right" to advanced centrifuge research and development at the buried-in-the-mountain Fordow site. And Iran won't have to agree to give IAEA inspectors unchallenged access to any suspicious location. All in all, the U.S. has offered a very good deal, yet Khamenei hasn't bitten. It's quite possible that he just expects to win more concessions from a U.S. president allergic to conflict in the Middle East. The more the West extends diplomacy, the more concessions it makes, and the smoother Iran's transition to a nuclear-armed state. Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He served in the CIA's Clandestine Service from 1985 to 1994, specializing in the Middle East. Mark Dubowitz is the foundation's executive director.