From the BBC:

Iran has rejected a new US policy offering economic incentives to the Islamic state to give up its nuclear enrichment programme.

“No pressure, bribe or threat can make Iran give up its legitimate right” to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, said an Iranian spokesman.

President George W Bush announced the major change in US policy on Friday.

He said the US would back European talks to resolve the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear issue.

His Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, announced the lifting of a decade-long block on Iran’s membership of the World Trade Organization, and objections to Tehran obtaining parts for commercial planes.

Washington accuses Iran of using its nuclear enrichment programme as a cover for developing nuclear weapons.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters on Saturday that “the remedying of some of the faults and the addressing some of the restrictions that were imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran without any cause will not prevent Iran from getting its legitimate right” to develop a nuclear energy capability.

Okay, just to get it out of the way, this could very well be nothing more than preliminary negotiating bluster on the part of the Iranians designed to set the outside parameters for any subsequent deal the US-European coalition strikes with the Iranian government.  But I certainly wouldn’t count on it.  And really, shouldn’t we be used to this by now?  I mean, these are crazed, nuclear-hungry mullahs we’re talking about.  Religious tyrants.  Terror enablers.  Give them an inch, they ask for a yard.  Give them a yard, they ask that you have it professionally landscaped, then insist you have your contractor install an olympic-size swimming pool and deck, gratis, so that they can have your teenage daughters over three times a week to swim cold-water laps for them wearing nothing but tiny white string bikinis.

But then, maybe that’s just what Bush expects will happen.  At which point the question becomes, will the Europeans finally be able to muster enough outrage to act?  Or will they dither and rationalize and continue to convince themselves that their daughters really do enjoy the exercise…?

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For more on Iran, see Daily pundit, who links to pieces by Michael Rubin and Michael Ledeen.