Nuclear 'Breakthrough' May Help Iran to Compromise

TIME.com: "Tehran is also keenly aware of the diplomatic difficulties facing the U.S. in the standoff. Even as they chided Iran for having conducted the latest experiment, Russia and China remain adamantly opposed to even threatening UN sanctions against Iran. And recent reports about U.S. planning for potential military action momentarily turned the conversation from how to deal with Iran's bad behavior to how to restrain the U.S."

The regime reportedly wants a compromise that accepts that Iran's nuclear reactor fuel will be enriched in Russia or elsewhere abroad, but allows it to maintain, under international scrutiny, the small research facility that completed this week's experiment. The U.S. and Europe have flatly rejected that proposal, because they had hoped to deny Iran the means of attaining even the know-how to enrich uranium for fear that this would be used in a covert bomb program.