Sometimes reporters like to sneak in a little bias in what should be straightforward reporting. Most of the time, they have the skill to make it subtly, but Jon Leyne lets his slip show a little more than usual — although he waits until the last line of his report on the latest EU incentive package to the Iranians to do so. Javier Solana will travel to Iran to give the mullahcracy an offer Solana thinks they can’t refuse to stop their uranium-enrichment program:

Mr Solana will present the Iranian government with a “generous” offer of incentives designed to encourage it to suspend the enrichment of uranium.

The West fears the enriched uranium could be used to make nuclear weapons.

If Iran refuses, the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany have threatened further sanctions.

So far, so good, even if one thinks that the likelihood of Russia and China actually agreeing to further sanctions approaches zero. Leyne makes it all the way to the end, when we get this:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already repeated many times that Iran will not change course, so the chances of success are not good.

But Iran does seem at least to want to continue talking.

And that means what, exactly? They haven’t budged an inch despite five years of talking. And one can understand why, with Javier Solana crawling out to Tehran with an even bigger set of incentives than the last new-and-improved offering. The longer Iran talks and refuses to stop enrichment, the better the package gets. Iran has no incentive to stop that process.

The longer Iran talks, the harder it becomes to get other nations to take action. The longer Iran stalls, the closer they get to building nuclear weapons, at which time it will be the Iranians dictating terms. Of course the Iranians want to continue talking. They don’t want to do anything else but talk.

And why does the BBC and Leyne go out of their way to add this sentence? Is it news? Is it even supportable analysis, let alone useful? No — it’s just Leyne and the BBC trying to minimize the standoff between Iran and the West. It’s opinion disguised as reporting, and foolish opinion at that.