November 14, 2007

Iran handed over a set of blueprints to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday that detail precisely how one might shape weapons-grade uranium into a form useable in a nuclear warhead.

The IAEA has been after hard copies of the plans for two years, ever since an inspector accidentally stumbled across a few pages of them while investigating Iran's nuclear program. Iran asserts that it received the plans unexpectedly from the Pakistanis who supplied them with certain technologies years ago. We can just imagine that thank-you note: "As a token of our appreciation for your purchase of 100 illegal uranium centrifuges, we would like to give you these free weapons plans!" But stretched truths aside, the move is the largest confidence-building step Iran has ever taken with the IAEA. Tehran really does seem to be coming clean about heretofore clandestine aspects of its nuclear program.

On the surface, this is a manifestly inane move, but only if you assume that Iran really wants a bomb. Stratfor has long maintained that Iran never expects to possess a nuclear weapon. Were Iran to ever get close, Israel and/or the United States undoubtedly would wage an air campaign to prevent its nuclear ascension. Instead, the program is more akin to that of North Korea: It is intended to function as a chip to be traded for concessions in other areas. Pyongyang is trading the North Korean program for international integration; Tehran wishes to trade the Iranian program for security guarantees in Iraq.

After four years of blood, sweat, tears and false starts, that may be finally happening. Removing the smoke and mirrors around the nuclear program only makes sense if Iran is getting a trade. On Nov. 12, U.S. Central Command Adm. William Fallon said explicitly that the U.S. military has no intention of attacking Iran -- not exactly the sort of rhetoric one would expect from Washington if the White House felt the need to pressure Tehran. There has been a definite -- and substantial -- thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations.

Should this thaw progress, the next steps will be twofold. First and most publicly, if "the Great Satan" and a charter member of the "Axis of Evil" are going to cut a deal, both governments will need to prepare their respective populations for a change in worldview. A generation of rhetoric cannot be unwound in a day. Second, terms will need to be announced to the public. Issues of U.S. sanctions, limitations on Iraq's military and Iranian activities in Lebanon will need to be swapped across the negotiating table like playing cards.

Of course, even if the Iranians and Americans are seeing eye-to-eye and are serious about going through with it -- which is optimistic thinking -- they are not the only ones with a vote. The player in this game with the most to lose, and therefore the biggest reason to scupper a deal, is Russia. An Iranian-American rapprochement would free up Iran to muck about in the Caucasus and Central Asia and liberate the Americans to resurge their power into Central Europe and Ukraine.

If Russia can undo any progress by either backing or hamstringing one power, you can bet your borscht that is just what will happen.