After the apparent reversal made by Pres. Ahmadinejad this week, we learn a valuable lesson on the importance of communication in any relationship.

The following remarks, made by Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, provide some insight into the rational behind the announcement by Ahmadinejad :

“Mr President [Ahmadinejad] made the comment in a subtle way. If you paid attention to his comments, he said: Start the 20-per cent enrichment, but the doors for cooperation are still open and we are still ready for fuel swap. In other words, we – although we will start the 20-per cent enrichment tomorrow – will stop the enrichment as soon as they (West) come to their senses and provide our fuel.”

Clearly, Iran has begun to show their inclination toward directing the negotiations a bit, by applying pressure to the West. I don’t think that this news discredits any efforts made by the international community to peacefully resolve the tensions inherent in Iran’s development of nuclear technology, but it highlights the importance of goal-oriented foreign policy in this case. The US has thrown its support behind the deal brokered by the 5 + 1 talks of this past year, whose goal was to outsource most of Iran’s nuclear enrichment to France while still ensuring that Iran can pursue peaceful uses of nuclear technology to the degree they desire. The main pull towards this deal was the desire of Iran to produce these 20% enriched medical isotopes that are contentious in the West (the argument goes that the gap between 20% enriched and the higher levels needed for weapons is not as large as the gap between the 3-4% enriched and weapons grade). This latest announcement, and the translation of the above statement reinforce Iran’s commitment to using nuclear technology for purposes they see as being benign; the reaction to this statement by the West has been subdued, but a renewed call for sanctions following the statement leads me to hope that patience and reason will prevail.

Its about common interests right? The West ultimately just doesn’t want more nuclear weapons in an area that is already prone to high regional tensions. Why that principle does not apply to Pakistan and India, I do not know, but that is the principle we’ve chosen to defend in terms of Iran’s nuclear program. The opening that still exists to incorporate Iran into an international system that regulates and safeguards the use of nuclear fuel has not been more widely opened in the past. They’ve declared their terms – all they want is assurance that the West will hold up their end of the deal – and now we have an opportunity to remove the drive towards higher enrichment from Iran’s political vocabulary. What sanctions are going to do to make Iran more open to this deal, I do not know. As Juan Cole reads it:

“In a face to face meeting at the beginning of October in Geneva, the West had suggested that Iran send most of its stock of low enriched uranium to another country for enrichment to the nearly 20% that is needed to run its medical reactor. Iran’s hard liners balked at the agreement, however, presumably because they view even a stock of low enriched uranium as a sort of deterrent to a Western attempt at regime change or a military strike on Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment facilities near Isfahan…”

“Salehi is saying that Ahmadinejad’s announcement was meant primarily to force acceptance of this alternative. At the same time, on Saturday Ahmadinejad seemed to say that he would accept the deal offered by the US in October. US officials were understandably skeptical about this alleged softening of Tehran’s position, and Salehi on Monday seemed to suggest that Iran was making a push for the hard liners’ compromise.”