Yesterday, McClatchy reported that after seven hours of negotiations in Geneva, Iran agreed to ship most of its enriched uranium stockpile to Russia for refinement, while refusing to halt enrichment all together. The deal is supposed to ensure that Iran's uranium is "used exclusively for peaceful uses."
It's a significant breakthrough for the White House's strategy of engagement with Iran, and it likely has a great deal to do with the added pressure created by the manner in which the U.S. handled the disclosure of Iran's secret second uranium enrichment site to the international community. But despite an initial burst of optimism, I think it's probably too early to start celebrating too much -- as Jake Tapper tweeted yesterday, "No one at the WH is crowing over any news that begins "Iran agrees to X." ... "Iran did X" might be another matter."
Indeed, a White House official told reporters that "the overall problem of Iran's nuclear program remains," and the president himself said, "Going forward, we expect to see swift action. We're not interested in talking for the sake of talking." Well, all that's happened so far is talking. Obama has demanded that Iran let inspectors into its Qom site within two weeks -- until they follow through on what they've agreed to, it's still too early to start crowing about the success of Obama's strategy.
At any rate, it should be clear by now that military action against Iran at this point would be a bad idea, for all the reasons Matt Duss explains here.
-- A. Serwer
