Barack Obama's Myopic Iran Policy (Text and Context‪)‬

Ordinarily, it would have been easy to dismiss the latest resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency censuring Iran as a text, drafted by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But context is everything. Whether by design or default, the unhelpful resolution comes at a time when the Iranians are still in the process of working out the terms of a landmark agreement on a nuclear fuel swap. If implemented, this would represent the first genuine breakthrough in the nuclear arena since the present standoff between Iran and the West began in 2005. Under the terms of the original proposal made last month by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany (known collectively as the P5+1), Iran is to send to Russia most of its stocks of 3.5 percent low enriched uranium (LEU) produced under safeguards at Natanz. There, the LEU would be enriched to 20 percent and sent on to France for fabrication into fuel rods for eventual use at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).