Iran's uranium-swap offer, and why it will be rejected

So Iran has officially stated that they're willing to exchange their low-enriched uranium for fuel for their medical research reactor, but on Iranian soil and only as part of a simultaneous exchange of uranium-for-fuel.

"When they (the major powers) deliver the 20 percent fuel to us, they can then take the LEU out of the country."

Previously the US had demanded that Iran simply hand over its low-enriched uranium, and then sit around for a year, in the hopes that perhaps one day maybe the US will see fit to perhaps contribute some bit of reactor fuel for those cancer patients in Iran...or not.

And you see, that's precisely why this Iranian offer -- perfectly reasonable as it is -- will be rejected and dismissed off-hand. Like I keep saying, the offer by the US to swap uranium was never expected to be accepted, and was intended to be refused. The nuclear issue is entirely a pretext and a fig-leaf for a different policy by the US just as "WMDs in Iraq" were a pretext. It has to be kept alive artificially. Even if this offer is magically accepted, the US will still insist that it is a one-shot deal, and that Iran should give up enrichment entirely, and not produce medical isotopes domestically but purchase them (nevermind the fact that isotopes are in short  supply worldwide, and that Iran would lose billions of dollars in doing so.) 

Comments

[Ray]

MH Mousavi along with the rest of the Green Movement members have come up with a compromise; The exchange should take place in Jerusalem.

[mb]

Completely agree. US will refuse this offer or any other offer by Iran. The US made an offer and knew well in advance that will be rejected. That was the whole intention, to portray Iranians as completely inflexible who "are rejecting the friendly offer of US olive branch". And then ..... US would start fabricating a dossier for Iran's secret WMD program.... and I am sure the reader knows what will come next.