Nuclear talks with Iran are now gridlocked over Iran's failure to approve a provisional deal tentatively agreed in Geneva on October 22.

That deal was an ingenious improvisation that played off a serendipitous development: the Tehran Research Reactor, which manufactures medical isotopes, happens to be running low on fuel.  The Geneva plan calls for Iran to ship most of its known stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further enrichment to about 20 percent U235, and then to France for processing into fuel rods.  These fuel rods then would be sent back to Iran to re-supply the Tehran Research Reactor, which makes medical isotopes.  Once irradiated in the Tehran reactor, the uranium from these fuel rods would be very difficult to extract and further enrich using technology available to Iran.

This seemingly win-win arrangement would meet Iran’s medical reactor needs while physically removing from Iran most of a stockpile of raw LEU that has greatly worried the West because it currently contains enough uranium -- if further enriched from 3.5 percent U235 to roughly 90 percent -- to make a single bomb.

What went wrong?

Both sides welcomed the accord initially.  Then serious criticisms emerged in Tehran, and Iran backed out of the deal, leading to the current impasse.

Western hawks and neo-cons have cited Iran’s dissatisfaction with the stockpile deal as proof that Ahmadinejad is just stalling for time.  However, the objections in Iran came not from Iran’s firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (he praised the deal as a “victory” for Iran) but from his conservative rivals joined by the titular leaders of the Green Movement in Iran.  It is hardly likely that Ahmadinejad would stall for time by praising a deal that his own side rejects days later, thereby making himself look foolish.

What actually happened?  Ahmadinejad's rivals in Iran castigated him for approving a deal that requires Iran to give up a major bargaining chip (most of its hard-won stockpile of LEU) without getting anything of strategic value in exchange (such as recognition of Iran’s right to enrich).

They also heaped scorn on the idea that Iran’s hard-won LEU is being entrusted to France.  France may be the only willing country with the technology to manufacture the fuel rods for the Tehran reactor, but France’s President Sarkozy can barely bring himself to say the word “Iran” except as part of a call for tougher sanctions.  And France is remembered in Iran as the country that two decades ago expropriated a billion-dollar Iranian investment in a multinational enrichment consortium (Eurodif).

How to salvage the deal (if it can be salvaged)

Iran reportedly has tabled a counter-proposal that would call for a simultaneous switch of French-made fuel rods for Iranian LEU.  Nuclear non-proliferation experts Jim Walsh at MIT and Harold Feiveson at Princeton believe this sort of swap could be structured in a way that meets Iran’s need for supply assurance with minimal added risk to U.S. security.  more

Indeed, if this interim arrangement could be used as a precedent for a long-term arrangement involving the exchange Iranian LEU for light-water reactor fuel rods going forward, that would be an enduring boon to western nuclear security.

What if the deal cannot be salvaged at this point?

Then move on.  The key thing to remember now is that the crux of the nuclear dispute with Iran is not the disposition of 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium that may or may not be shipped abroad but will soon be replaced in any case.

The main issue on the table is the long-term future of enrichment in Iran, and prospects for a safeguards and inspection regime that minimizes the risk of an Iranian nuclear "breakout."  Even if the Tehran reactor deal were shelved completely while long-term talks are ongoing, Iran is highly unlikely to “break out” from Natanz in the next few months, with barely enough fuel for a single bomb, in the middle of talks aimed at a permanent accommodation with the West.  Certainly the risks of that scenario are far smaller than the risks flowing from the alternative outcome of no talks, sanctions and war.

The key thing now is to keep our eyes on the prize: enmeshing Iran's nuclear program in a comprehensive network of safeguards and inspections that maximize our own security.