Interview with the American Conservative
June 6, 2026
A creative solution that seems to have first been proposed by the Omani mediators is that Iran join Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a nuclear enrichment consortium that would allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium up to the 3.67 percent enrichment required for civilian nuclear energy. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who would gain access to Iran’s nuclear technology, would be shareholders and funders.
The proposal is based on a consortium idea first proposed by Princeton physicist Frank von Hippel and former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian. Von Hippel explained to me that the advantage of a consortium is that it allows nuclear experts from each country to “visit each other’s facilities to assure themselves that the activities are peaceful.” He added that “decisions that might have proliferation implications are made by the [partner] governments.” Saudi Arabia’s, the Emirates’ and Iran’s watchful eyes would all help the International Atomic Energy Agency ensure that the program is peaceful.
Mousavian, who is now a visiting research collaborator at Princeton, told The American Conservative that “denying Iran this right means subjecting it to discrimination as the only member state deprived of such a right. This constitutes a national humiliation.”
For both of these reasons, Iran’s red line is very firm. It is so firm that Mousavian recounts that Khamenei once told then-top Iranian nuclear negotiator (and future President) Hassan Rouhani that “if Iran is to abandon its right to enrich, it will either have to happen after my death, or I will have to resign from leadership.”
Trump has made it clear that “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal.” What if the U.S. stands firm in its insistence that no enrichment can take place on Iranian soil? I asked Mousavian if the red line is so firm that Iran would refuse to negotiate its civilian enrichment program even if the U.S made it clear that the alternative to that deal was war. His answer was one simple sentence: “Iran will not dismantle its enrichment facilities under any circumstances.”https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-might-not-be-able-to-skirt-irans-red-line/