Exciting Swiss diplomacy on Iran-nuclear issue

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told reporters in Saudi Arabia that he will be discussing with the Gulf Arab countries a plan (that they had proposed earlier) enrich uranium for their projected nuclear power program in a neutral country “such as Switzerland.”
The plan earlier proposed by the six (all-Arab) members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was for the establishment of a consortium for this purpose that could provide nuclear fuel to Iran and any other Middle East states (though perhaps not including Israel?), who might be planning their own nuclear power programs.
Ahmadinejad’s confirmation of interest in the GCC proposal, and his naming of Switzerland as the possible location for this project, are both very significant. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin had suggested that his country could provide uranium-enrichment services for Iran, but that proposal got nowhere. As I recall, that was due in good part to the opposition of Washington; but Ahmadinejad was only lukewarm about it, too.
Interesting if this time around, he is signaling a much greater degree of interest in this outsourcing proposal…
Switzerland’s involvement in the current plan is interesting. On its face, it would seem not to portend the formation of a potentially hostile anti-US bloc, as the idea of Russian involvement did for many people. Also, I imagine the GCC countries would be a lot happier to have Switzerland host the enrichment project (and to put their money into the project there), than to have that all happen in Russia.
Also this weekend, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey confirmed that her country is actively pursuing a plan to engage the US and Iran in direct negotiations. According to that link, which is to an AP story in the IHT, Calmy-Rey told a Swiss weekly paper that her country’s long-held tradition of neutrality in international relations,

puts it in a key position to mediate the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“It is a fact that the … big powers have so far been unable to prevent Iran from pursuing uranium enrichment,” she said in an interview published Sunday, her first public comments about Switzerland’s role.

Switzerland has, of course, handled consular affairs between Iran and the US ever since the two broke off relations in 1979. But the new diplomatic role Calmy-Rey is carving out for her country seems to go far beyond the provision of such purely technical services.
All power to her!
The AP story also notes that Calmy-Rey,

has said Switzerland rejects the proliferation of nuclear technology but recognizes the right to use the technology for peaceful purposes.

That has been, of course, the sticking point in the current international conflict over Iran’s nuclear program. The US, Israel and a handful of other countries, including France and the UK, have been very strongly opposed to Iran gaining a working nuclear program even for power generation, arguing that it could too easily be converted to a program to develop nuclear weapons (which the US, Israel, the UK, and France all already have, and show no signs whatever of giving up.)
If the fuel enrichment for Iran’s nuclear power program can be done outside Iran, that makes the “conversion/diversion” danger much, much smaller.
Ahmadinejad’s apparently strong expression of interest in the GCC proposal looks remarkably statesmanly. It is also some pretty smart diplomacy. Especially at a time when the US has been rushing around trying to enroll all the Arab states into its drum-beating, anti-Iran “crusade” (oops, sorry, make that “campaign.”)
I should just reiterate at this point the judgment I have held to for a long time now, that though many Arab states have misgivings– some of them quite strong ones– about Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East, still, they all without exception fear the fallout from any possible US-Israeli military attack against Iran much, much more, and are willing to work hard to avert such an attack.
So maybe the Switzerland-GCC plan is a good way in which the tension over Iran’s nuclear program can be de-escalated, and relations between Teheran and Washington returned to a much more even and less globally destabilizing a tone.
Let’s hope so!
However, many of those who have been agitating hardest for a US (and/or US-Israeli) military strike against Iran can be expected to be upset about this. This is particularly the case of all those who urged such a strike not, basically, because of their fears about Iran’s nuclear program, but because they sought regime change in Tehran and have been prepared to rack up and use the issue of the Iranian nuclear program in order to “justify” the military attack.
But if the GCC-Swiss proposal can verifiably meet people’s concerns regarding the Iranian nuclear program, it should be welcomed by everyone.
Meanwhile, Calmy-Rey is 1,000% correct to continue to push her campaign for the opening of serious direct talks between the US and Iran. Only through the direct contacts between these two parties, and the concomitant establishment of an all-party, Iraq-plus-all-its neighbors-plus-the-UN-and-the-US negotiation can the US ever hope for an orderly withdrawal of its troops from the continuing quagmire in Iraq.
All the rest of the world also desperately needs the US-Iran relationship to stabilize.