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concessions to the other, and so far there is little sign that the United States and the P5+1 have improved their offer to Iran very much. As the talks were announced, the Washington Post reported: “The P5+1 powers have made only mild revisions to a proposal that Iran flatly rejected last June.” Until now, the United States has been unwilling to acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich uranium on its own soil and to suggest that some economic sanctions might be lifted as part of a deal, and Iran has refused to agree even to a limited deal called “stop, ship, and shut” – involving the suspension of its enrichment to 20 percent purity, shipping its existing stockpiles of 20% uranium to a third country for processing, and shutting down its underground facility at Fordo, near Qom – without an agreement to lift sanctions.

After the reelection of Barack Obama in November, there were great hopes that the president would have greater political freedom of offer concessions to Iran. Yet, publicly at least, the White House isn’t signaling that it is ready to make a more generous offer to Iran, and in fact Obama in January signed into law yet another round of draconian economic sanctions.

Perhaps as a result, Iran allegedly dragged its feet on setting a date for talks. Despite prodding from the P5+1 – including urgent efforts by Russia — in

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