Editorial: The narrow path to a nuclear deal with Iran

Iran has spent a decade evading the scrutiny of international inspectors and defying United Nations Security Council resolutions while building its nuclear program. Tehran is installing advanced centrifuges to more quickly enrich uranium, a key to a quick "breakout" to build a bomb.

So it took some, well, chutzpah for President Hasan Rouhani to tell the United Nations that his country has an "inalienable right" to develop its nuclear program under an international treaty enforced by ... the United Nations.

How the U.S. and its allies deal with Rouhani's assertion could be the key to nuclear negotiations resuming next week in Geneva.

In his speech to the U.N., President Barack Obama floated what some see as a diplomatic trial balloon. "We respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy," he said.

Obama didn't provide any details. "Access" could mean a deal in which Russia would produce nuclear fuel for Iran and ship it to Iran's not-yet-operational nuclear reactor, an idea Russian President Vladimir Putin floated in 2005.

But speculation grows that a prospective nuclear deal could allow Iran to continue churning out lower-level nuclear material in its factories as long as it was closely monitored by U.N. nuclear inspectors, just as happens in other countries under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

Such a deal would be extremely risky. Here's why.

Iran claims the 1970 NPT guarantees its right to enrich uranium. The treaty, which Iran signed, does speak of an "inalienable right" to develop and produce nuclear energy "for peaceful purposes." But the treaty is explicit about the limits of that right. Any nuclear aid provided to other countries, it says, must not conflict with the treaty's overarching goal: to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to states that do not have them.

Neither Obama nor his predecessor, George W. Bush, explicitly affirmed Iran's right to enrich uranium under the NPT. There's a good reason for that: Tehran has provided the world with a decade's worth of proof that it can't be trusted to abide by international restraints.

Iran built a secret nuclear enrichment facility deep underground. It stonewalled inspectors' questions about programs that look to be aimed at building nuclear weapons components. Read every International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran for the last decade and you'll find IAEA officials beseeching Tehran for answers that ... never ... come.

The NPT does not force the world's nuclear powers to suspend disbelief and help rogue states like Iran develop nuclear capabilities. Allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium would likely be a surrender to the inevitability of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Over the past several years, U.S.-led sanctions have crippled Iran's economy. But they have not stopped Iran's nuclear progress. The outlines of a deal have been on the table for months: Tehran can have nuclear fuel for power, but it must first shut down its enrichment facilities and ship out higher-grade materials to prove that it is not on course to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran's leaders say they need fuel mainly for nuclear power reactors. If that's all they wanted, they could have had it years ago when Putin floated his proposal to produce and deliver fuel. Iran turned Putin down flat. That deal could be on the table again, in a flash, if Iran were interested only in nuclear power and not nuclear weapons. It remains the best option to resolve this conflict.

Iran may one day earn back the trust required to allow it to enrich uranium. It can take the first steps by dismantling its outlaw program and showing the world that its intentions are, indeed, peaceful.

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