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EDITORIAL: Enticing Tehran: Russia's and China's Help Could Be Key to Curbing Iran's Nuclear Ambitions

Posted on: Sunday, 4 June 2006, 15:00 CDT

By The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Jun. 4--Dealing with Iran is fraught with problems, but a six-nation proposal announced Thursday just might work.

Until now, protracted negotiations between Iran and European powers on suspending uranium enrichment have yielded nothing. As talks dragged on, Tehran continued research that the U.S. government contends is for nuclear weapons, not peaceful energy.

The agreement, reached by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, is preferable to previous plans because it contains an alternative if Iran's leaders fail to cooperate.

The proposal offers incentives to turn away from nuclear-arms research. Although details weren't revealed, the incentives appear to include offers to assist Iran's nuclear research for peaceful purposes. If so, that would be a significant change in U.S. policy, because the Bush administration has asserted that Iran, a major oil producer, has no need for nuclear energy. Increases in trade and foreign investments also could be offered as enticements.

U.S. officials said that the agreement commits China and Russia to supporting sanctions against Iran if it rebuffs nuclear disarmament. As two of the five U.N. Security Council members with veto power, China or Russia could block any U.N. effort to punish Iran. Until now, the mullahs in Tehran counted on a weak U.N. response.

Iran's official position is that it will chart its own future without regard to what the world community thinks. Political analysts believe that the leaders in Tehran, while often sounding defiant, know they would be unwise to put their economic and technological links with other countries at risk.

Until recently, U.S. policy has favored a harder line on Iran. President Bush and Rice deserve credit for redirecting policy toward talks.

The fiery president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a long and rambling letter to Bush in May, opened the door to negotiations with the United States for the first time since 1979. The Bush administration was right to agree conditionally to talks rather than toss away this opportunity to break the ice.

The multinational plan on Iran has no guarantee of success. The Iranian leadership is unpredictable. The six nations might not remain unified. This could turn into just the latest failure to get this radical government to forsake nuclear weapons. But this is a move in the right direction.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

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