The next Jay Leno?  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, waves to people during his trip to Arak, where he enjoyed laughing it up over the latest European Nuclear Incentives.

TEHRAN, Iran (ISN) 17 May, 2006 - Iran's president, in rare form matching the best late night comedians currently airing on television, mocked a package of incentives to suspend uranium enrichment.  “They want to give us so little to give up so much,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said doing his best Tony Blair imitation.  “They say, ‘We give you this piece of chocolate and we take this piece of gold from you,’ like we were stupid little children.”  He emphasized his point with a follow up spitting on the ground. 

This latest outbreak certainly didn’t have much positive affect on the U.S. efforts to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.   “If he is attempting to get Jay Leno’s job, he did a great job,” a White House spokesman said.  “But if he is attempting to negotiate a peaceful solution to his country’s current problems, he is going about it the wrong way.”

"Do you think you are dealing with a 4-year-old child to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold from him?" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked derisively.  “We are beyond 4-year-olds.  In our last IQ test taken on-line from Tickle, we scored in the high 6-year-old range.  Beware of who you are messing with Capitalist Pigs.”

He spoke before a huge crowd in the city of Arak, the site of a heavy-water reactor that is scheduled for completion by early 2009. Such facilities produce plutonium as a byproduct usable in building nuclear weapons.  “If we listen to the Europeans, we will have to scrap the plans for this heavy-water reactor,” he told the anxious crowd.  “That means your lives will waste in poverty once more.  Do you want the Europeans to take away of promising future of dollar a day wages because they don’t trust us?” Ahmadinejad said playing to the weakness of the crowd.

Signaling a road of hard times ahead, a high-level, six-nation meeting on Iran was postponed Wednesday, reflecting differences between the United States and its allies on one side, and the Chinese and Russians on the other.

The London meeting of senior officials from the five permanent Security Council members and Germany was to have been held Friday, but was postponed to Tuesday at the earliest, diplomats told The Ironically Speaking Network.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the session was postponed because "we're trying to put together a package that would include incentives on one side and penalties."

"I don't think there is a full agreement on exactly what would comprise the package," he said. "Maybe we will prohibit any Iranian government officials the privilege to visit Disneyland when they come to the UN.  There are so many options right now and this is complex, multilateral diplomacy. It takes a little bit of time."

China and Russia have opposed bringing Iran's case to a vote in the U.N. Security Council, where the United States, Britain and France have pressed for sanctions.  “They want to play both sides of the fence,” one Whitehouse staff mentioned.  “They want to do what is right, but they want to be the good guys in the Iranian public’s eyes at the same time so that all future contracts will flow their way.  It makes sense from a business point of view, but it really drags down the world politics.”

Only a day earlier, European nations said they might add a light-water reactor to a package of incentives meant to persuade Tehran to permanently give up enrichment.  Also kicked around was an all expenses paid summer vacation package for all Iranian leaders on the coasts of Spain and ski trips in Switzerland during the winter.

But Ahmadinejad heaped scorn on the offer in the nationally televised speech Wednesday.

"They say they want to offer us incentives," he said. "Real incentives would be sending beautiful European women to Tehran as a gesture of good intentions.  But they don’t want us to have their women because we are not good enough to touch their women.  We tell them: keep the incentives as a gift for yourself. We have no hope of anything good from you."

His defiance was met with shouts that were unclearly saying either, "We love you Ahmadinejad!" or “Hey, Fuck you Ahmadinejad!” from the crowd.

A light-water reactor is considered less likely to be misused for nuclear proliferation than a heavy-water facility, which produces plutonium waste.  Also, the Europeans know that the light-water reactor would come with a 10 year warranty which would give them many opportunities to visit the plant when called for repairs.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, feeling a bit giddy himself, joined the president in the counterattack, mockingly offering the Europeans trade concessions if the EU dropped its opposition to the nuclear program.

In retro pre-Iraq invasion, Saddam Hussein war tones, Asefi said, "We are prepared to offer economic incentives to Europe in return for recognizing our right (to enrich uranium)," in reference to Saddam telling George Bush he had 48 hours to leave Washington after Bush had issued a 48 hours notice to him hours earlier.

The fiery Ahmadinejad said Tehran had put its trust in the European Union in 2003 and suspended its nuclear activities as a confidence-building measure as negotiations continued. The EU then demanded that Iran permanently stop uranium enrichment.

"We won't be bitten twice," Ahmadinejad said. “In 2003, they told us they would open their tourism doors to us and we would soon see many gorgeous blonds walking around our palace.  Three years later, we had one old lady visit us and the hussy wanted to charge us for her services.  We are insulted!”

The 2003 deal called for guarantees that Iran's nuclear program was only intended for building reactors for electricity generation and was not being used as a cover to develop weapons. The European Union had promised to place Tehran in all their tourism brochures and guaranteed a quota of 200,000 visitors the first year, with 150,000 to be female.  Iran agreed to the request, but negotiations collapsed in August 2005 when the Europeans said the best guarantee was for Iran to permanently give up its uranium enrichment program and they would fly in a couple of planes full of African emigrant ladies.

Iran responded by resuming reprocessing activities at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan after a public condemn burning ceremony to rid themselves of the preservatives they had so hoped to used in other forms.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad underlined Iran's determination to continue enrichment and scolded the Europeans for what he viewed as doing the dirty work of the Americans.

"We recommend that you not sacrifice your interests for the sake of others," he said. “If you don’t really give a damn about us, then go on about your business and let Bush fight his own battles.”

Ahmadinejad also reissued his threat to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

"Don't force governments and nations to renounce their membership in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," he said asserting that Iran had the right to a civilian nuclear power program. “We don’t want to do this because, as a good standing member, we get discounts on all of our visits around the world.  But discounts mean nothing if we can’t save money with pride.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Beijing and Moscow would not vote for using force to resolve the nuclear dispute.  “Force, force, force,” Lavrov yelled.  “There are so many other ways of handling this like sending out-dated humanitarian aid to them or making them sit in the back of the UN bus when traveling in New York City.  We need to use all the options at our disposal before we talk about force.”

In a gesture to Tehran, Lavrov also said Ahmadinejad was attending a summit next month in Shanghai, China, of leaders from Russia, China and four Central Asian nations.  "We cannot isolate Iran or exert pressure on it," Lavrov said. "Far from resolving this issue of proliferation, it will make it more urgent.  We plan on taking Ahmadinejad out for a few beers and see if we can’t talk to him, man to man."