Iran continues juvenile gamesmanship on nuclear program

Reuters/NY Times:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday told Iran's Atomic Energy Organization to start work on producing nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor, further raising the stakes in a dispute with the West.

Ahmadinejad's announcement is likely to irritate Western powers which want Iran to send most of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad in return for higher-refined fuel for the Tehran reactor producing medical isotopes.

Last year, Iran and six major powers discussed making such a swap as a way to ease international concern about Tehran's nuclear ambitions, but they have failed so far to agree on how to implement the plan.

Iranian officials have repeatedly said the Islamic Republic can make fuel enriched to 20 percent itself if there is no agreement on obtaining the material from abroad.

"We had told them (the West) to come and have a swap, although we could produce the 20 percent enriched fuel ourselves," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.

"We gave them two-to-three months' time for such a deal. They started a new game and now I (ask) Dr Salehi to start work on the production of 20 percent fuel using centrifuges," he said, referring to atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi.

But he added at a ceremony marking Iran's laser technology achievements: "The doors for interaction are still open."

...

This is an apparent response to the rejection of Iran's conditional offer of exchanging fuel with the West.

It is getting hard to continue the pretext that Iran is a legitimate negotiating partner on the nuclear issue. Ahmadinejad is making Obama and other s seeking a deal look very foolish. There are two courses that remain open to deal with these guys. China can get off the dime and quit pretending there is a deal to be had and join the rest of the world in imposing punitive sanctions on Iran, or it can watch its investments in Iran go up in smoke as Iran's program is destroy by kinetic means.