BE CAREFUL OF IRANIAN DICTATORS BEARING GIFTS - AT 8:26 P.M. ET:  Iran is seeking to shake up its talks with the West, set to start tomorrow, with a deceptive proposal:

Iran will propose that it is prepared to buy from a third party uranium enriched to the grade it requires for its Tehran reactor rather than carry out the enrichment itself, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.

Note the fine print.  The purchase would be for its tiny Tehran research reactor only.  They're giving up nothing, including the right to enrich uranium at other plants.

His remarks, ahead of Thursday talks in Geneva with six major world powers about Iran's nuclear programme, represent the first time Tehran has agreed to discuss specifics of its enrichment operations with the powers.

Some will make something of that.  It's no big deal.  We expected them to dangle some hotel-room keys in front of us.

"One of the subjects on the agenda of this negotiation is how we can get fuel for our Tehran reactor," the president was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying.

"As I said in New York, we need 19.75 percent-enriched uranium. We said that, and we propose to buy it from anybody who is ready to sell it to us. We are ready to give 3.5 percent-enriched uranium and then they can enrich it more and deliver to us 19.75 percent-enriched uranium."

In New York last week, Ahmadinejad said Iran would seek to enrich uranium to 20 percent itself if it could not find the product in the market for its research reactor in Tehran.

I hope the Obamans see this "proposal" for what it is.  The problem, of course, is that some professional talker in the State Department might describe it to reporters as an "encouraging" beginning, setting off the word processors of the Obama choir in the media.

September 30, 2009