Nobody, of course, thought that referring Iran's nuclear research program to the United Nations Security Council would lead immediately to Iranian willingness to negotiate. The idea was to demonstrate the seriousness of western and global concern  over Iran's suspected eagerness to acquire nuclear weapons.  But since the referral at the beginning of February, Iranian rhetoric appears only to be getting more radical -- and its willingness to negotiate seems to be fading fast.

On Monday, Iran indefinitely postponed talks with Moscow over a Russian plan which calls for Iranian uranium to be enriched in Russia to a level necessary for nuclear power plants. The talks were supposed to have resumed last Thursday, but Iran's presidential spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said on Monday they have been postponed due to the "new situation." Elham was referring to the Security Council referral.

Elham also repeated hints made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran may be considering a withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory. While Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday sought to counter speculation that Ahmadinejad was weighing a withdrawal, Elham on Monday said "there is no reason to continue our current nuclear policy while we are deprived of the positive aspects of the treaty."

But while some comments coming out of Tehran were carefully formulated in the language of international diplomacy, others seemed straight out of the conflict escalation handbook. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi on Sunday repeated Iran's apparently official stance that the Holocaust wasn't all that bad. Specifically, he indicated that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is worse than Germany's treatment of the Jews during World War II. "I believe the crimes committed by the Zionist regime are greater than the Holocaust," he said. "Unfortunately, the Zionist regime is blackmailing the Europeans with the Holocaust." The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday also repeated claims made by Ahmadinejad that the Muhammad caricatures published by a Danish newspaper in September were part of an Israeli conspiracy.

The real oratory fireworks, though, were reserved for Ahmadinejad himself, speaking before a mass demonstration in Tehran on Saturday on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Aside from a relatively routine assertion that Iran's nuclear program is entirely peaceful in nature, Ahmadinejad once again slipped into militaristic anti-Israeli posturing. Europeans, he said, are "held hostage" by the "Zionists" and the "Holocaust fairy tale." He also repeated his demands that an independent investigation be undertaken to look into the "truth about the fairy tale of the Holocaust."

He then threatened Israel itself: "We ask the West to remove what they created 60 years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them," Ahmadinejad said. "Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations."