This concession was made apparently as a quid pro quo in exchange for an Iranian promise to suspend uranium enrichment activities until the end of July. In so acting, the US gave an irrevocable payoff to the Iranians in exchange for a temporary and – given Iran's past penchant for breaking its commitments – suspect concession. The rationale apparently is that the US doesn't want to press the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons program until after next month's Iranian presidential elections. The frontrunner in those elections, after nearly all of the candidates were rejected by the mullahs, is former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Speaking of what awaits the world under a repeat Rafsanjani presidency last Friday Hojatolislam Gholam Hasani, a representative of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told worshipers at a mosque: "You need to vote for Rafsanjani. This way we will finally be able to have for ourselves the atomic bomb to fairly stand up to Israeli weapons." According to a report by Adnkronos news agency, Hasani continued, "Freedom, democracy and stupidities of this type cannot be carried over to any part, and these concepts are out of sync with the principles of Islam. Islam always spoke with the sword in the hand, and I don't see why now we should change attitudes and talk with other civilizations."

Last week too, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ratcheted up US rhetoric against Iran, promising US backing for Iranian democracy activists and saying on two separate occasions that the US and the world cannot abide by a nuclear-armed Iran. And yet, by agreeing to allow the mullahs to negotiate entrance into the WTO, the fact of the matter is that the US's actions tend to dispel the credibility of her statements.