There appear to be two developments worthy of note from the direct talks in Geneva between Iran and the P5 along with Germany. First, the announcement that IAEA inspectors will visit the newly uncovered Qom enrichment facility, according to the EU’s Javier Solana, “in the next couple of weeks.” Second, that US Undersecretary of State William J. Burns held a 30 minute private discussion with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. Where now from this point?

What last week’s Qom revelations highlighted is the possibility of a “hidden nuclear archipelago stretching across the country.” That arresting phrase, coined by Gary Milhollin and Valerie Lincy, points to this disturbing possibility:

Clearly, the new plant makes more sense if it is one of many. If Iran built a second plant of the same size as the Qum operation and ran them in tandem, the production times described above could be almost halved. And if Iran had a string of such plants, it would be able to fuel a small arsenal quickly enough to reduce greatly the chance of getting caught. This would also limit the damage if one site were discovered or bombed, because its loss might not affect the others. Such a secret string of plants, however, would probably require a secret source of uranium. Intelligence agencies have been looking for such a source; the Qum discovery should be a signal to increase their efforts.

The Qum plant might also be linked to Iran’s known enrichment plant at Natanz, which is under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Natanz has a stockpile of uranium that is already enriched partway to weapon-grade. By feeding this uranium into the new Qum plant, Iran could fuel one bomb in about seven months, even at the present low production rate. If the rate were quadrupled, as Washington is projecting, the plant could fuel a five-bomb arsenal in less than a year.

Unanswered questions, ongoing fears: it all leads back to whether Iran will cooperate, particularly while Jalili is in the driving seat.

We can’t say for certain, although there really is very little reason to be optimistic. Here is an excerpt from a 2008 piece by the Israeli-Iranian analyst Meir Javedanfar about Saeed Jalili:

Three years after entering office, Ahmadinejad has failed to deliver on all of his promises. The nuclear program is all that he has left. His old friend Jalili, as the general secretary of the Supreme National Security Council has the ear of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and is Ahmadinejad’s point man in the nuclear program. Jalili and Ahmadinejad believe that by not negotiating with the West, they will weaken Iran’s pragmatists and reformists, who are concerned about Iran becoming more isolated. This way Ahmadinejad hopes his chances of reelection next year will increase.

For now Khamenei, Iran’s ultimate decision-maker, seems to back the advice of Jalili. Judging by reports from the July 22 edition ofJomhuriye Eslami newspaper, which is considered to be Khamenei’s mouthpiece in Iran, Teheran is going to turn down the EU’s recent incentives package.

Read it all.