MB Civic

Editorial  |  June 17, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

IT TOOK awhile, but the Bush administration has wisely joined with European allies, Russia, and China in making an offer to Iran so valuable that Iran’s rulers can reject it only at the price of confessing to the world that they are lying about the peaceful purpose of their nuclear program — and revealing to their own people that the regime cares more about its geopolitical illusions of grandeur than about the welfare of Iranians.

The package of incentives Iran’s decision makers are now evaluating includes practically everything they have hinted they might want. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany are pledging to provide Iran with the wherewithal to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses. Iran would receive light-water reactors, up-to-date technology for nuclear power plants, and a choice of two sources of nuclear fuel — either from an international consortium operating in Russia or from a nuclear fuel bank under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In return, Iran is being asked to suspend its nuclear enrichment activities, cooperate fully with IAEA inspectors, and enter into negotiations on a long-term agreement assuring that Iran’s nuclear program is not meant for military purposes. The IAEA has reported that Iran is not now cooperating as it should, and in particular is not answering questions about suspected hidden military components of its nuclear activities. Iran’s response to the requirement of complete transparency over an extended period of time promises to be a crucial indicator of its intentions.

Indeed, Tehran’s emphasis on its right to enrich uranium may be a shrewd masking device for its reluctance to permit IAEA inspectors to see whatever they want to see in Iran and obtain plausible answers to questions about weapon designs already found in Iran, traces of highly enriched uranium, and the source of centrifuges and other nuclear materials.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Iran is a signatory, confers a right to nuclear energy for peaceful uses — not an unqualified right to enrich uranium. Iran’s long history of concealing and lying about its nuclear program and its current uncooperative behavior explain the IAEA’s conclusion that Iran is not in compliance with the NPT. To return to compliance, Iran must do what the six-power initiative is asking it to do: suspend its ongoing enrichment of uranium and come clean to IAEA inspectors.

The six-power offer even leaves open a possibility that, after Iran fully satisfies the IAEA that its nuclear program will not lead to nuclear weapons, it could eventually be permitted to enrich uranium domestically. This gesture by the six nations reflects a keen understanding of the need to dispense with every Iranian excuse for refusing to suspend enrichment and comply with its obligations under the NPT.

For the Bush administration, the decision to include even a far-off prospect of uranium enrichment inside Iran marks a dramatic policy shift. On this issue as with the administration’s ground breaking readiness to negotiate directly with an Iranian regime that President Bush previously castigated as part of an “axis of evil,” there has been a long-overdue dispensing of rigid doctrinal attitudes.

Accepting the advice of its European allies, the administration has finally come to see the wisdom of making Iran’s clerical rulers an offer they should not want to refuse — not unless they are willing to sacrifice international trade, foreign investment, advanced technological transfers, replacements and spare parts for their fleet of US civil aircraft, oil, and natural gas pipelines, and talks on security issues in the Persian Gulf.

If Iran’s rulers choose to reject the benefits of this extraordinary offer, they will deserve the punitive sanctions that the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, described to them in Tehran this week. They will also deserve the wrath of an Iranian public that already attributes its hardships to the corruption and incompetence of Iran’s theocratic regime.