Cryptic from Ahmadinejad - A shift on Iran?

Despite the absence of direct talks, it's quite certain that the US and Iran have been communicating through lower level contacts and intermediaries which makes this statement by Ahmadinejad very curious.

"Initially, they (the U.S. and its allies) were very angry. The reason was clear: They basically wanted to monopolize nuclear power in order to rule the world and impose their will on nations," Ahmadinejad told a news conference.

"Today, they have finally agreed to live with a nuclear Iran, with an Iran possessing the whole nuclear fuel cycle," he said. He did not elaborate.

What does that mean?

The AP also points to the prepared statement by Bush at the press conference yesterday. (Sitting next to Olmert, so you figure the language is pretty precise.)

We spent a great deal of time on Iran, and about how we can work together with other nations of the world to convince the Iranians to abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions.

Notice the careful way the language has been changed to "nuclear weapons ambitions." That's new.

With the Russians and Chinese digging in their heels over sanctions and the increasing pressure to negotiate with Iran over Iraq, maybe something has, in fact, changed.

(All of this coming in the context of the IAEA finding unexplained plutonium traces in an Iranian waste facility, so, maybe I'm extrapolating something out of nothing here.)