CRISISBOOM

ISTANBUL — The U.S. is joining five other world powers for talks with Iran this week publicly confident that international efforts have slowed Tehran’s capacity to make nuclear arms and created more time to press Tehran to accept curbs on its atomic activities.

But while diplomats and officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. nuclear monitor — agree that Iran’s enrichment program has struggled over past years, the Federation of American Scientists warns against complacency.

It notes impressive improvements in the performance of the Iranian machines that enrich uranium — an activity that has provoked U.N. sanctions because it could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Washington’s message is essentially this: Iran is struggling with uranium enrichment, a process that can create both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material. Significantly, that view is backed by Israel, Iran’s implacable foe and considered to have the Mideast’s best intelligence on Iran’s nuclear strivings.

If true, that leaves more time to negotiate in hopes Iran will come around and give up enrichment — thereby removing the threat of an Israeli or U.S. military strike on Iran’s nuclear Read more…