The 1 October 2009 meeting in Geneva between the so-called E3+3 (Britain, France, Germany, the US, Russia and China) and representatives of “Mahmoud and the Mullahs” was a not-so-surprising initial success. The Iranian leadership knows it’s being backed into a corner following the disclosure of the under-construction Qom enrichment facility. The only hope for them to stay in power and continue their program is to play along.

The outcome of yesterday’s meeting didn’t stop the centrifuges from spinning. Nevertheless, it’s a promising start, with an agreement to allow inspection of the Qom facility and to ship roughly 75% of Iran’s stockpile of 1,600 kg of low enrichment uranium (LEU) to France or Russia for enrichment to research grade. This is probably close to the total amount of LEU in Iran, given the number of operational centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility (see my post Iran’s Nuclear Program: By the Numbers for more details.) What’s left isn’t enough to make a bomb anytime soon.

There’s a few unanswered questions though:

• Will the Iranians come clean and reveal the location, status and activity of other secret nuclear program facilities? Speculation is there’s a least 10-15 other facilities involved in the program. This is a distributed program, with many locations and opportunities to hide development.
• What about Iran’s nuclear warhead and missile development programs? If the development program is for peaceful purposes, then of course there are no warhead programs. Oh really? Then explain the IAEA’s secret report that Iran worked on nuclear warhead.
• There’s an international aspect to this program. How much nuclear technology is being exported by Iran to Venezuela? What are the roles of Syria and North Korea? How do they figure in Iran’s strategy to minimize development location risk?

Putting the brakes on Iran’s program will require more than just inspections – along with sanctions and the threat of military action, it requires understanding its full scope and implementing a strategy that ensures it’s a peaceful, domestic program only. We’re a long way from that point.