Are Western powers likely to support the new deal?
This deal is less attractive to France, Russia, and the United States—the three states directly involved in the original offer—for two primary reasons. First, from their perspective the original proposal was agreed to in part to help dissuade Iran from enriching uranium to 19.75 percent (the enrichment level of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor). After pulling out of the deal in February of this year, Iran started enriching to this higher level and has announced that, in spite of the new agreement, it will continue to do so, even though Iran would have no use for such material if and when it receives the fuel from Russia and France. Brazil and Turkey were probably happy to concede on this point because they didn’t want to set a precedent that might affect their nuclear programs in future. Second, when the Geneva deal was negotiated Iran possessed about 1,700 kg of low enriched uranium.[1] If Iran succeeded in enriching it further, this quantity would have been enough to make a nucle
