Why Iran sees no rush for a nuke deal

In the diplomatic swirl around Iran's controversial nuclear program, a meeting set for Wednesday between Tehran's top negotiator Ali Larijani, and European foreign policy chief Javier Solana, was meant to bring a rare moment of clarity.

But that meeting was postponed until Friday, the day after senior negotiators of the UN Security Council's permanent five members and Germany are expected to meet in Berlin to discuss economic sanctions in response to Iran's nuclear fuel work.

Iran appears in no rush, emboldened by a combination of factors, say analysts, which range from an ironclad belief in the rightness of its nuclear case, to record-high oil prices, and the state of conflicts in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan that Tehran believes have given Iran an advantage over US and Israeli foes.

"Iran does not feel the need to compromise on this; they are creating facts on the ground [by efforts to enrich uranium]," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

"If this argument was taking place in 2002, when oil was $25 per barrel and the Iraq war was not yet prosecuted, Iran's calculations would be much, much different," says Mr. Sadjadpour. "I don't think in Washington there has been a recognition of the repercussions of the Iraq war – that it has essentially given new life to this regime in Tehran."

Pressure on Iran mounted Wednesday, despite divisions over the extent to which the six Western powers were willing to impose sanctions, much less resort to eventual military force.

"Iran's response is not satisfactory," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday. "We won't close the door to negotiations but we, the international community, won't stand by and watch as Iran harms the rules of the UN nuclear authorities."

Last year, Iran ended a 2-1/2-year suspension of uranium enrichment efforts. Such work can yield nuclear fuel for power plants or – if enriched to a much higher level – for atomic weapons, which the US claims is Iran's true aim. In April, conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran had achieved low-level uranium enrichment suitable for nuclear power plants.

Now on the table is a US-EU incentives package, hand-delivered to Iran last June, that requires Iran to stop enrichment work before talks can begin. Iran has ruled out such a suspension, ignoring a Security Council deadline last week, and has responded with a 21-page counterproposal.

The postponed Larijani-Solana meeting was intended to clarify outstanding questions on both sides before Thursday's Berlin meeting, between the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany. Russia and China have not yet endorsed UN sanctions. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – whose government is building an $800 million nuclear power plant for Iran – balked again on Wednesday, saying "use of these [sanctions] or not still needs to be defined [and] commensurate to the presence of a real threat to international security."

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