Putting Iran and the Obama administration on the same side.

Via LA Times:

Iranian lawmakers on Friday, Dec. 20, threatened retaliation for a new Senate bill that proposes tough new sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic fails to cooperate in upcoming negotiations aimed at curbing its nuclear program.

Mehdi Moussavinejad, a senior member of the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, said lawmakers were considering a measure that would hike Iran’s uranium enrichment for the current top concentration of 20 percent to more than 60 percent, substantially closer to the 90 percent needed for nuclear weapons fuel.

“Given the method that the other negotiating side — the U.S. in particular — has adopted during the nuclear negotiations, the legislators are working on a bill that will require the government to increase the level of uranium to over 60 percent,” Moussavinejad told the official Iranian Republic News Agency.

He said the high-grade material was needed “to supply fuel for our ships.”

The lawmaker was reacting to news that 26 senators, including 13 Democrats, had signed on Thursday as co-sponsors of a new sanctions bill, despite furious lobbying from the White House. The Democrats included Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., the No. 3 Senate Democrat, and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Obama administration officials have maintained that new sanctions could drive Iran from the negotiating table and strengthen its hard-liners who don’t want a deal with the West.