Ahmadinejad's Proposals Shouldn't Be Dead on Arrival
The Iranian president's proposals for defusing the nuclear crisis and ending the civil war in Syria matter, writes Andrew Parasiliti for Al-Monitor. Let's offer to sell Iran enriched uranium in return for a halt in enrichment, and encourage the emerging regional consensus about the need for a negotiated outcome for Syria and a role for Iran.
Covering the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York makes good copy, and the media has tended to emphasize his more colorful and objectionable comments. When Ahmadinejad questions the Jewish claim to Israel, he gets plenty of headlines, and deservedly so. As president of Iran, his words matter and he is accountable for them.
But when he puts forward what might be constructive offers on the nuclear negotiations or ending the violence in Syria, he is often ignored or dismissed as irrelevant, a lame duck, a liar or on the losing end of a power struggle with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
I attended two meetings with President Ahmadinejad last week. As he is still the president of Iran, and that should carry some weight with policy makers and diplomats, I found most noteworthy his proposals signaling potential openings to defuse the nuclear crisis with Iran and end the civil war in Syria.
On Iran’s nuclear program, Ahmadinejad said in New York that his previous offer for Iran to end its production of 20% enriched uranium if the enriched uranium was provided to Iran for its nuclear medical-research reactor is “still on the table.” He repeated the offer at a press conference in Tehran on Oct. 2, saying “anytime they give us this fuel we will feel no need to produce the costly fuel of 20%.”
