Iran has made a successful diplomatic coup when it signed the tripartite agreement with Turkey and Brazil, whereby it would ship its low-enriched uranium to its Western neighbors, which would be subsequently returned to Iran after being enriched to 20% for use in medical purposes. However, this agreement will not engender a solution to Iran's dispute with the West over its nuclear program. This is because such a solution requires a settlement over many details, lengthy discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the necessary approval of the 5+1 group regarding any possible agreement. But in truth, the devil is in the details, while lengthy negotiations would allow for stalling and for [Iran] betting on a change in circumstances. Furthermore, the agreement which is binding solely for its signatories, addresses only a part of the issue as Iran is only willing to send a specified amount of uranium to Turkey, while emphasizing its right to continue uranium enrichment. In other words, it is a diplomatic agreement among the three signatory parties which does not represent the response that the 5+1 group and the Security Council anticipated from Iran, regarding the group's proposals, including the proposal for a uranium swap deal. For this reason, we have to understand the Iranian diplomatic coup in isolation from the solution being sought for the Iranian nuclear crisis: The success of this coup stems from the fact that it has hindered the efforts to impose a new batch of sanctions through the Security Council, while not presenting the desired response to the proposals mentioned above. This means that Iran succeeded in putting off the sanctions for a long period, without making any concession regarding the core elements of its crisis with the West. In fact, Tehran has skillfully prepared the [appropriate] circumstances for the tripartite agreement, benefiting to a large extent from the political, economic and energy needs of the two emerging countries, Turkey, the neighboring country that is growing in influence in the region and Brazil, the country that is equally growing in influence in Latin America. As such, Iran concluded several types of cooperation agreements with both countries, thereby reinforcing bilateral and political ties with Turkey and Brazil. This effectively means that these latter have permanently moved from the camp of countries hostile to Iran, and joined the ranks of the latter's allies who defend it and its nuclear program. This is precisely what President Lula and Prime Minister Erdogan are doing. Hence, the tripartite agreement was nothing short of a ‘prize' that both countries desired- each in the context of its own policy and environment. As the date of submitting the sanctions' draft proposal to the Security Council draws near, and given Russia's tendency to support the sanctions and the Chinese criticism of the Iranian behavior, Iran has staged a broad diplomatic campaign among the non-permanent members of the Security Council. It seemed that this campaign, however, did not achieve much success, especially among smaller countries that are largely influenced by Western positions. Therefore, it was necessary to foment a “positive shock” through two UNSC members which while they are non-permanent members, they are quite influential. The tripartite agreement was thus signed with Turkey and Brazil, who will both most certainly oppose any sanctions against Iran in the Security Council. In fact, Turkey and Brazil will also use their political and economic influence to avoid moving forward with the sanctions, and in case these were insisted upon, the two countries will seek to prevent them. Moreover, the agreement has put the sanctions on hold for a long time, since it imposed a new set of questions, responses and investigations, whether bilaterally between Iran and the IAEA, or between Iran and the 5+1 group. As there is a Turkish-Brazilian pledge to return the enriched uranium to Tehran in case the agreement was not implemented, Iran will lose nothing while it will continue its enrichment of uranium. Iran has played the brinkmanship game, and kept being reluctant in signing the agreement until Erdogan expressed his anger, and asked Iran it to act responsibly. It wanted its coup to be well-prepared, as it timed it with another coup when it recovered the Iranian convicted of killing Shapour Bakhtiar, and who was serving a life sentence in Paris. Iran hence managed to force France to release Ali Vakili Rad in exchange for releasing the French student Clotilde Reiss. This swap is a miniaturized image of what the tripartite agreement will be like. While it is still early to predict similar results as applied to both cases, it is possible to conclude that Iran has skillfully used and benefited from the brinkmanship game, even if for a short while.
