The most important announcement from Iran this week did not come from Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian regime has made headlines this week with its announcement that it will allow inspections into its recently discovered enrichment site in Qom, and its agreement, albeit ambiguously, to allow enrichment to be handled by Russia or France. Less covered, but actually more important, are recent statements from the Iranian opposition against the nuclear weapons program--warning Western leaders not to be fooled by Ahmdinejad’s latest concessions, and actually offering a viable alternative to solve the current nuclear standoff.

Iran’s leadership knows that every policy decision about Iran in the West, or even in Russia and China, is haunted by the specter of the Iranian democratic movement--a recognition that the regime is suffering from profound inner fissures and lack of legitimacy at home. Russian vacillation in its support of the current Iranian government has left Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad worried about losing their international support. Their foreign policy is founded on the assumption that Russia and China will support them against any serious UN sanctions. To ensure the continuation of this crucial support, the regime has had to offer some concessions on the nuclear issue. Moreover, Khamenei does not want to fight on two fronts: with Iranian democrats at home, and with the international community abroad.

While the regime is showing conciliatory signs to the West, at home they have tried to sell the latest agreement as a great victory for the regime. The world, their message is, has come around to accept Iran’s terms. For example, the commander of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, talking to 300 Basiji supporters meeting in the still-occupied American embassy compound in Tehran on Friday, announced that the Khatami style of negotiation was tantamount to treason and the new empowered Iran is forcing its terms on the West. The often-implied and sometimes-explicit message is that the policy of confrontation pursued by Khamenei and Ahmadinejad--as opposed to the policy of negotiating with the West suggested by reformists--has allowed them to now negotiate from a position of strength. To reinforce that message, they also engaged in the provocative act of testing a new medium-range missile. Ahmadinejad’s suggestion that Iran’s next meeting with the group of 5+1 should be at the level of heads of state is rooted more in his need for a legitimizing photo-op than any substantive policy initiative.

Iranian democrats, on the other hand, have in recent days made a concentrated effort to tell the world that the regime is in fact negotiating from a position of weakness; that it does not intend to abide by any agreements they now make; and, most importantly, that the democrats are committed to approaching the nuclear issue differently than the current regime. It is these statements that deserve the most attention in the West.

In recent years, the regime in Tehran and its apologists in America have cultivated the myth that on the nuclear issue, there is a "national consensus" in Iran, and that nothing separates the regime from its democratic opponents. From this faulty premise, many policymakers draw the conclusion that the United States must make a deal with the current regime and not wait or worry about a more democratic Iran. Three statements in the last few days have proven this premise faulty. In reading these statements, we must bear in mind that the reformists are all trying to walk a fine line in demarcating their position from that of the regime, while not offering any opportunities for the regime to accuse them of selling out Iran’s sovereign rights.