Reply #4: It still makes little sense. Iran is still beholden unless the goal is weapons.

[Statistical]

Economics:
Economically running an enrichment plant for so few reactors would be like every homeowner refining their own gasoline so they don't need to be beholden to refineries. When you consider the fact that other countries have 50+ years experience doing enrichment it is unlikely Iran enrichment centers can ever cover their cost of capital. So it is going to be vastly more expensive for Iran to enrich and fabricate their own fuel.

Iran Supply:
The even sillier aspect is Iran has no meaningful uranium reserves. There entire weapons program is based on 500 tons of yellowcake purchased from South Africa decades ago. That would produce about 80 tons of LEU reactor fuel. That wouldn't even power a single 1 GW reactor for more than 5 years. Iran natural uranium reserves are negigible and of such low yield that it is unlikely they would ever even break even in terms of energy for exploration & extraction vs. energy produced (EROEI).

98% of worlds supply of Uranium are found in these countries:
Canada
Australia
Kazakhstan
Russia
Niger
Namibia
Uzbekistan
USA
Ukraine
China
South Africa

Iran has close ties with Russia (and former Soviet states) so it is unlikely Iran supply of uranium will ever be cut off unilaterally and that applies equally to raw uranium or enriched uranium. So if they really do intend to build nuclear energy they will need to purchase uranium from one of the above countries anyways. Why would purchasing enriched uranium vs purchasing raw uranium and enriching make them more "beholden"?

International Supply:
The IAEA and NPT work hard to ensure that countries that comply with guidelines are not cutoff from fuel. If Iran has access to international uranium then it has access to international fuel (enriched & fabricated uranium). I can't think of a single instance where a compliant country faced nuclear fuel restrictions.

Russia I believe is planning to setup a nuclear fuel stockpile to be placed in hands of IAEA as a safeguard to ensure no NPT compliant nation is ever cut off from uranium supply however the move is really sumbolic as no NPT compliant nation ever has been cutoff from uranium supply.

The only reason for Iran to insist on having its own enrichment despite the lack of economic security it provides and the consequences is to build nuclear weapons. Period.

On edit:
Kinda funny this is in TIME magazine today.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1984657,00.html