HAVE IRAN NUCLEAR TALKS HIT A SNAG? – AT 8:27 A.M. ET:  I don't know.  We're getting contradictory reports.  On the one hand, a State Department spokesman says that negotiators are ready to start drafting a grand agreement with Iran, limiting its nuclear program.  On the other hand, both AP and AFP (the French news agency Agence France-Presse) are reporting a major snag that can bring down the talks:   

VIENNA — A once-promising UN attempt to probe suspicions that Tehran worked on atomic arms is faltering — and with it, hopes that Iran and six world powers can meet their July target date for an overarching nuclear deal.

With efforts to draft the text of an agreement starting in Vienna on Wednesday, both sides say that meeting the informal July 20 deadline remains possible. The US administration gives it a 50-50 chance, and Iranian Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recently said the talks are progressing at an “unexpectedly fast pace.”

The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany want to reduce Iran’s present nuclear weapons-making potential. Tehran has been engaging with them over the past six months in exchange for full sanctions relief, even though it insists it has no interest in such arms.

But the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency is no nearer to closing the books on persistent allegations that Iran worked on nuclear arms in the past. While the IAEA’s probe is formally separate from the talks, the US and its allies insist that Tehran must provide satisfactory explanations to the UN agency as part of any overall deal.

Back in November, Tehran agreed to go into deeper explanations of its work on detonators that have a variety of uses, including sparking a nuclear explosion.

That has not happened. Three diplomats told The Associated Press Monday that in a recent formal response, Iran continues to insist that there is no nuclear link to the detonators. Tehran says they were developed only to set off conventional military blasts, and later for civilian uses.

The IAEA outlined its suspicions in a 2011 report on a wide range of suspected weapons experiments. It said then that Iran’s work on the detonators is of concern, “given their possible application in a nuclear explosive device, and the fact that there are limited civilian and conventional military applications for such technology.”

COMMENT:  From what I've been reading, I don't think Barack Obama and his sidekick, John Kerry, will let some nuclear nuisances stand in the way of a signed agreement...no matter what that agreement says.  I think both men are in touch with their inner Chamberlain, and want an agreement to take to the Democratic base before the midterm elections. 

As for the Europeans, I get the sense that they see the nuclear negotiations as essentially a commercial matter, a way to get Iran back as a trading partner.  Lots of money in Iran.  The Germans seem particularly eager to get started.  Nuclear weapons?  What nuclear weapons?  We only saw cap pistols. 

Only American leadership can prevent a bad agreement, and there isn't any.

May 13, 2014