Taken together, the myriad developments are baffling. Iran says it has made advances in nuclear research, but wants to resume talks with the West. It is threatening to cut off oil supplies to Europe while allegedly sponsoring attacks against Israeli diplomats. German editorialists attempt to make sense of the confusion.

Is anyone at the controls in Iran? It is a question that many in the West are asking following this week's flurry of announcements, denials and conciliatory advances centering on the country's nuclear program. Perhaps even more vexing, however, is the fact that Tehran is also thought to be behind a series of decidedly amateurish attacks targeting Israeli diplomatic personnel in Georgia, India and Thailand.

"What we see is provocative acts … designed to distract attention from the demonstrated impact that (international) sanctions are having," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Wednesday. "It is not unusual for Iran to try to distract attention … by some burst of rhetoric or some announcement."

Carney was specifically referring to Iranian claims on Wednesday that it had made significant advances in its mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle. In a live television broadcast, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was shown observing what was described as the insertion of the first Iranian-made nuclear fuel rod into a reactor. In a separate announcement, the Fars news agency reported that a "new generation" of centrifuges, a key part of the process to enrich nuclear fuel, had gone into operation at the Natanz nuclear facility.

On the same day, Iranian state media reported that Iran was preempting approaching European sanctions by cutting off oil deliveries to six E.U. countries -- a report that was quickly denied by Tehran and then amended to reflect that fuel supplies had only been cut to France and the Netherlands. Tehran then confirmed merely that it had informed European diplomats that it would be able to quickly find new buyers, should Europe impose planned sanctions.