On Mon, 7 Jul 2008, Robert Naiman posted
> Americans Don't Know: There's a Plan on the Table to Resolve the
> Nuclear Standoff with Iran
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/americans-dont-know-there_b_111199.html
which cites an article in the NYRB and boosts a video because most people never read it and never will. But on this list, people are the opposite -- most likely to read it if it's a text -- so below are the money grafs. And Robert is right: this is very solid plan made by very establishment guys. It's reassuring that there is one.
Michael
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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21112
The New York Review of Books Volume 55, Number 4 · March 20, 2008
A Solution for the US-Iran Nuclear Standoff By William Luers, Thomas R. Pickering, Jim Walsh
The recent National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Tehran
stopped its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, together
with the significant drop in Iranian activity in Iraq, has created
favorable conditions for the US to hold direct talks with Iran on
its nuclear program. The Bush administration should act on this
opportunity, if for no other reason than that its current position
is growing weaker, and without such an initiative, Iran will
continue its efforts to produce nuclear fuel that might, in the
future, be used to build nuclear weapons.
Currently, Iran has approximately three thousand centrifuges, which
it has used to produce small test batches of uranium that has been
enriched to a low level (which cannot be used for nuclear weapons).
Until now, Iranian engineers have not successfully operated a
centrifuge cascade (a collection of centrifuges working together) at
full capacity--which, as a practical matter, would be needed to
enrich nuclear fuel to the level necessary either to establish an
effective nuclear energy program or to manufacture nuclear weapons.
But the Iranian government has declared its ambition to build more
than 50,000 centrifuges, and recent reports also suggest that Tehran
is testing a modified "P-2" centrifuge, a more advanced version of
its existing centrifuge technology, which can produce a larger
volume of enriched uranium.
We propose that Iran's efforts to produce enriched uranium and other
related nuclear activities be conducted on a multilateral basis,
that is to say jointly managed and operated on Iranian soil by a
consortium including Iran and other governments. This proposal
provides a realistic, workable solution to the US-Iranian nuclear
standoff. Turning Iran's sensitive nuclear activities into a
multinational program will reduce the risk of proliferation and
create the basis for a broader discussion not only of our
disagreements but of our common interests as well.
<end excerpt>
Full at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21112
wherein they reveal that there have been informal talks going on between them and Iranian academics and policy advisors for over five years.
Michael