Iran and the United States have come to some agreement about Iran's nuclear program. They, at least, have agreed on the two main framework points that will be discussed the future negotiations – the points of rights and of peaceful nuclear program.
Considers these excerpts on the issue from president Obama's and president Rouhani's UN General Assembly speeches yesterday.
Obama:
We are not seeking regime change, and we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy.
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We should be able to achieve a resolution that respects the rights of the Iranian people, while giving the world confidence that the Iranian program is peaceful.
Rouhani:
Iran and other actors should pursue two common objectives as two mutually inseparable parts of a political solution for the nuclear dossier of Iran.
Iran's nuclear program – and for that matter, that of all other countries – must pursue exclusively peaceful purposes. […]The second objective, that is, acceptance of and respect for the implementation of the right to enrichment inside Iran and enjoyment of other related nuclear rights, provides the only path towards achieving the first objective.
So these two points as a framework for further negotiations have now been accepted by both sides. The only difference in these positions is "enrichment". Obama still sticks to "access nuclear energy" which, in his mind, may not necessarily include enrichment.
In 2009 the Obama administration's (wrong) position on Iran's rights, like that of the Bush administration, was "nuclear energy yes but no enrichment":
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Iran’s leaders on Sunday that if they were seeking nuclear weapons, “your pursuit is futile,” and ruled out explicitly the possibility that the Obama administration would allow Iran to produce its own nuclear fuel, even under intense international inspection.
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“You have a right to pursue the peaceful use of civil, nuclear power,” she said, as if addressing Iran directly. “You do not have a right to obtain a nuclear weapon. You do not have the right to have the full enrichment and reprocessing cycle under your control.
At that time the current Secretary of State Kerry rejected that "no enrichment" position:
“The Bush administration [argument of] no enrichment was ridiculous . . . because it seemed so unreasonable to people,” said Mr Kerry, citing Iran’s rights as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. “It was bombastic diplomacy. It was wasted energy. It sort of hardened the lines, if you will,” he added. “They have a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in that purpose.”
Has Obama now accepted Kerry's position? If he has not done so then there will be no progress in any negotiations. But if Obama accepts Iran's inalienable right to enrich Uranium for its nuclear reactors the question will come down to how much of "rights" and of how much of "peaceful". That is on the first how many centrifuges, what grade of enrichment and what other programs like the heavy water reactor will Iran be able to run without constant U.S. interference. To just say "zero", like Netanyahoo does, is not an option. On the second point the question is how much oversight will the Iranians accept to give confidence in the peacefulness of their program.
When those points are agreed upon there will also be the procedural question of a step by step implementation. What sanctions will be abandoned against what level of additional IAEA oversight of Iran's nuclear program?
There will be a bit of bazaar like haggling over these points. But it seems clear that the two major framework points of any future negotiations have been agreed upon. That Obama has not yet explicitly given up on the "bombastic" point of "no enrichment" is a bit of a disappointment and probably the reason why the Iranians did not accept a direct Obama Rouhani meeting yesterday.
That the U.S. diktat position seems to have softened and a framework for negotiations has been found gives me some hope that the upcoming negotiations will have some positive results.