Iran ups the ante

The mullahs let the anxious souls in the West know that while the gimmmes in the West's proposal to Iran were acceptable (and it's hard to know why they wouldn't be, since they demand hardly any real concessions from Iran) the pot needs to be sweetened a bit more and certain `ambiguities' have to be resolved.You can check out all the goodies we've offered the mullahs and how little we're asking in return here. Even nuclear enrichment is off the table, as now all the Bush Administration wants is a halt during negotiations!

And, oh yeah...any proposals on actions against Iran if they refuse to take the package have to be excised. Iran's top negotiator Ali Larijani - the same guy who wrote an article about how he deceived and fooled the West in nuke negotiations before - said Iran would reject the package outright if Western powers threatened the Islamic republic with sanctions as part of the proposal.

I think that covers it.

Iran said the key issue of uranium enrichment — a process that can make nuclear fuel for a power plant or fissile material for an atomic bomb — needed `clarification'.

Iran has not responded to the offer yet and its foreeign minister let everybody know that Iran would not be rushed. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi insisted Iran was not stalling over the package and would take "as long as is necessary" to study it.

Ali Larijani said the offer of nuclear technology was a "positive point" but that "there are also points that are unclear, such as the uranium enrichment program."

"This has not been made clear yet to Iran, so these are things where the finishing touches must be made," he told reporters in Cairo, Egypt, after talks with President Hosni Mubarak and Arab League chief Amr Moussa.

Egypt is a member of the IAEA and is reportedly being heavily lobbied as a go-between.

Want to bet that one of the things Iran will want as a `sweetener' is a `nuclear free Middle East' and the scrapping of Israel's nuclear arsenal?

The more I see about what's being offered and how little the West is getting it return, the more it smells of Munich.