Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses the Iran uranium swap negotiations in 2009-10; a reminder that the Tehran Research Reactor was supplied by the US in the 1960s, and reconfigured after the 1979 revolution to use far-less enriched uranium (reducing weapons proliferation risks); how the initial swap offer by the US asked Iran to hand over its low-enriched uranium, with no collateral, and trust France to provide fuel rods a year later; the eminently reasonable Iranian counter-proposals that were ridiculed and dismissed by US officials; and how Obama reneged on his promise to Turkish and Brazilian negotiators when Iran accepted a deal he was sure would be rejected.
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