SOME FURTHER PEACEFUL ENCOURAGEMENT FROM IRAN - AT 11:18 A.M. ET:    The Obama administration's "engagement" with Iran is producing no results.  Is anyone surprised? 

Senior Iranian lawmakers rejected on Saturday any possibility of Teheran shipping uranium abroad for further enrichment, intensifying pressures on the government to reject the UN-backed plan altogether.

Prominent conservative lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran will not ship its low enriched uranium abroad in a single batch or in several shipments, a compromise suggested by some government officials, under any circumstances.

"Nothing will be given of the 1,200 kilograms (of low enriched uranium) ... to the other side in exchange for 20 percent enriched fuel, not in one batch nor in several. It is out of question," the semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted Boroujerdi as saying Saturday.

COMMENT:  The American media regularly takes its eye off this story, but there's nothing more important.  Iran is moving toward an atomic bomb.  We now know that it has developed technology to mate that bomb with a missile.  We know it hides critical parts of its scientific programs.  And yet the president this week was still talking about breaking down mistrust between the United States and Iran.  Maybe he still thinks it's all our fault. 

November 7, 2009