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This is a guest post from Laura Kasinof, a freelance journalist based in Cairo.

A crowd of pro-democracy Egyptians gathered at Cairo International Airport this afternoon to welcome Mohamed ElBaradei -- former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, potential contender in Egypt's next presidential election, and the newest beacon of change for much of the country's liberal opposition movement -- to his home city.

ElBaradei's announcement last December that he will consider running for president in 2011 -- given the stipulation of a free and fair election -- sparked a popular movement in the country in support of an ElBaradei candidacy. In the days leading up his return to Cairo, no one knew whether or not the Egyptian government would allow the predicted "thousands" of ElBaradei supporters to rally together outside the airport in such a public affront to the Mubarak regime.

A leaked report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran may have continued testing detonators and missile re-entry systems associated with atomic weapons beyond 2004 and has already enriched a small amount of its uranium to a nearly 20 percent level suitable for a crude nuclear bomb, according to multiple news reports on Thursday.

The IAEA paper, scheduled to be presented to the organization's 35-country board on March 1, is the first to be issued under the leadership of newly minted chief Yukiya Amano, who took over from Mohamed ElBaradei in December.

In an anonymous background briefing to reporters, a senior Obama administration official sounded a stern line. He said that Iran's "pattern of behavior is one that is very disturbing" and noted that "this is the first time that [the IAEA has] now raised a question that there may be ongoing activities related to weaponization."

Seriously. Baradei's Now, Get Elected or ElBaradei Tryin', Take Me Down to Baradei City... I've got nothing.

In any event, in case you haven't heard, the former IAEA chief-slash-possible presidential candidate returns to Egypt for a visit on Friday -- and his countrymen are planning quite the welcome. The Egyptian opposition newspaper Ad-Dustour printed his flight information (عربي; he lands shortly after noon) and reports that thousands of people will gather at Cairo International Airport to welcome him. Supporters are hoping ElBaradei will deliver a quick speech at the airport.

The escalating war of words over Iran's nuclear program, and possible sanctions against Iran, is pretty predictable. U.S. officials say Iran has left the world no choice but to impose new sanctions; Gen. James Jones, the U.S. national security adviser, said on Sunday that current proposals are "not mild sanctions. These are very tough sanctions."

Tehran responded with a warning of sorts: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the West it will regret sanctioning Iran, and threatened a "response" against anyone "seek[ing] to create problems for Iran."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the annual Munich Security Conference that a deal on shipping Iranian uranium out of the country to be enriched could be reached in the "not too distant future," according to the BBC.

"Under the present conditions that we have reached, I think that we are approaching a final agreement that can be accepted by all parties," he said.

American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brushed aside Mottaki's remarks, which were welcomed by China, saying: "The fact is we haven't really seen much in the way of response ... Sometimes we see a response from a part of the government that is then retracted from another part of the government."

Western diplomats are apparently pushing ahead with new sanctions on Iran, despite Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's offer to ship low-enriched uranium out of the country for several months.

US and European diplomats are pushing for an expanded travel ban on officials connected with Iran's nuclear program, and tougher restrictions on Iranian banks.

By now you've probably heard that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered to export Iran's low-enriched uranium for further enrichment.

In an interview with Iranian state television, Ahmadinejad said he has "no problem" with sending Iran's LEU out of the country. This is more-or-less the same deal the IAEA offered back in October, with one key difference: The original IAEA deal called for roughly a 12-month enrichment window, but Ahmadinejad said yesterday Iran would only part with its LEU for "four or five months."

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, expressed his support for the plan today after a meeting in Ankara with Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "[This is] a formula which could build confidence," Mottaki said.

There's been a depressing amount of dubious reporting on Iran's nuclear program: The breathless reports of a "classified annex" to the IAEA's research on Iran, for example, or the Times of London's thinly-sourced report on Iran's alleged neutron initiator work.

But the Associated Press deserves some kind of award for this story, which claims that Iran wants to buy 1,300 tons of uranium from Kazakhstan -- allowing it to ignore U.N. demands and continue enriching uranium. Who's the source?

No surprises here: The U.S. has rejected Iran's nuclear offer because it sends out Iran's low-enriched uranium in tranches, rather than all at once.

The Iranian regime appears to be inching back towards a deal on its nuclear program. Foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki today said that Iran would accept, in principle, a U.N. proposal that allows Iran to exchange its low-enriched uranium for more highly-enriched fuel rods.

"We accepted the proposal in principle," he said through a translator. "We suggested in the first phase we give you 400 kilograms of 3.5 percent enriched uranium and you give us the equivalent in 20 percent uranium."

If the regime is serious, this would be an encouraging change from the brash rhetoric of the last few weeks -- a recognition, perhaps, that Iran has pushed the envelope too far.

The Iranian regime's announcement that it plans to build ten new uranium enrichment plants prompted a surprised reaction from the West. French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner described it as "very dangerous"; Russian officials say they're "seriously concerned" with the announcement.

That was clearly the goal: As Julian Borger wrote this morning in The Guardian, Iran doesn't actually have the capacity to build those plants. The Christian Science Monitor quotes one expert who says the plan, announced yesterday by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will take decades. It will also be hugely expensive; Iran, already facing massive budget deficits, can ill afford to spend billions more on uranium enrichment.

So the regime's threat, for now, is an empty one, an act of political theater intended to provoke a reaction.

As Charles Barkley once said: I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

The backstory: An Iranian lawmaker, Mohammad Karamirad, said yesterday that parliament might withdraw Iran from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to protest yesterday's IAEA censure vote.

Karamirad said parliament might also block IAEA inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.

The Associated Press writes that "Karamirad does not speak for the government but his statements reflect hardline thinking that the government usually pursues."

The White House issued a statement on this morning's IAEA vote on Iran. The full statement is posted after the jump; it talks about the "growing international deficit of confidence in [Iran's] intentions," and warns that "time is running out."

(Updated below) The IAEA voted today 25-3 to censure Iran for defying a United Nations Security Council ban on uranium enrichment, and demanded that Iran cease further enrichment at its once-secret enrichment plant outside of Qom.

The full text of the resolution isn't yet available on the IAEA Web site; we'll post a link as soon as it goes up.

Today's vote is getting a lot of attention because both Russia and China voted in favor of the resolution. The Guardian suggests that it "could form the basis for a future binding resolution by the UN security council, which in turn could be used to impose sanctions." And Glyn Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, said the resolution signaled that "the world's patience is running out."

Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, has delivered Iran's final response to the draft IAEA proposal unveiled last month. But there seems to be a bit of confusion about what, exactly, Iran said.

The original deal, in case you've forgotten, calls for Iran to ship its low-enriched uranium overseas, where it would be enriched further by Russia and then returned. That would provide an 8-12 month window in which Iran does not have enough uranium to further its nuclear program.

There's a lot of confusion over whether Iran has formally rejected the IAEA draft proposal unveiled last month. News reports are careful not to use the word "rejected": Ha'aretz, for example, reports that world leaders "expressed disappointment on Friday that Iran had not accepted proposals."

The speculation apparently started on Monday with this Jerusalem Post story, which claimed that Iran "completely rejected" the IAEA draft and the Obama administration just doesn't want to admit it.

I've developed something of an unhealthy fascination with the S-300 missile system. Quick recap: Russia and Iran signed an $800 million deal for the air defense missiles; Russia has yet to deliver them; Iran has yet to pay for them; Israel is trying to block the sale.

Iran's defense minister, international fugitive Ahmad Vahidi, said today that Russia needs to fulfill the contract and deliver the missiles.

At the NIAC conference last week, Thomas Pickering said the U.S. should propose a compromise on Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. could ask Iran to ship all of its low-enriched uranium to a third country, like Turkey, which would then send the uranium out in tranches for further enrichment.

Michael Slackman tries to figure out why the Iranian government is haggling over the IAEA's draft agreement, and concludes that politics -- local politics -- are a big part of the answer.

We've all spent the last few weeks focused on Iran's nuclear program; the pro-democracy movement, and the still-simmering controversy over June's stolen election, have largely fallen out of the news.

That will change this week: Mousavi and Karroubi plan to hold a rally on Wednesday, Nov. 4 -- the 13th of Aban in the Iranian calendar. Wednesday marks the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.