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I think this is more the signs of desperation, rather than confidence.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scorned U.N Security Council sanctions imposed against Iran, telling a crowd Tuesday that Iran had humiliated the United States in the past and would do so again.
Speaking in the southwestern provincial capital of Ahvaz, Ahmadinejad said the Security Council's resolution last month was invalid and had left the world body's reputation in tatters.
Actually, the UN's reputation has been in tatters for some time. What with the heinous sexual abuse by UN Peacekeepers in the Congo and the Oil-For-Food scam, to name the latest.
Ahmadinejad is facing some serious problems. He has an increasingly restless populace, especially the among the intelligentsia. The latest elections in Iran were a slap in the face with more moderates elected than had been foreseen. This erosion of Ahmadinejad's power base is also troubling to an aging theocratic council that is truly in control of Iran. His domestic influence is dribbling away. Slowly to be sure, but make no mistake, it is going away.
Ahmadinejad is also dealing with an energy issue. They are currently on a course that will basically rob them of their economic engine, oil exports. With rapidly rising internal energy demands, and an infrastructure that has not been updated since the Shah was deposed, Iran has painted itself into a corner. It desperately needs energy if it wants to improve (or even maintain) the standard of living most of it's citizens have come to expect.
On the face of it, nuclear power seems like a reasonable reaction to this crisis (perhaps the resolution of one issue can even help resolve the first). But, their willingness to sell weapons to external states (see Hezbollah and its recent war with Israel), and the concerns of other nations, specifically the US, UK, France (yes, France of all countries!) and Israel, make their statements regarding civilian application seem specious. Even the IAEA, forever reticent about making a stance one way or the other, has expressed "some concern". Everyone is terrified at the thought of some terrorist purchasing weapons-grade nuclear material.
I hope the UN sticks to its guns on this one. This, along with the North Korean issue, is an opportunity for the UN to show that it still has relevance.
But... but... he promised!
New traces of plutonium and enriched uranium — potential material for atomic warheads — have been found in a nuclear waste facility in Iran, a revelation that came Tuesday as the Iranian president boasted his country's nuclear fuel program will soon be completed.
The International Atomic Energy Agency report detailing the discovery also faulted Tehran for not cooperating with the U.N. watchdog's attempts to investigate other suspicious aspects of Iran's nuclear program.
I understand. I do. Iran's economy is so bad, Ahmadinejad is doing the Chicago Tapdance more to distract his own people than anything. He's pulling a quasi-Hitler here. Hell, he's even including antisemitism as a bonus. It's funny, while every rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth lefty is calling Bush the modern day equivalent of Hitler, we have one, bold as life, sitting in the Middle East. We can get into the irony of Iran (of the ancient Persian Empire) being the home of Aryans, later.
The only problem here is that Israel is not Czechoslovakia. While the rest of the world may replay history, bemoaning the fact that Iran is about to become a nuclear power, Israel will not sit on its ass and let things happen. They will do the same thing they did to Iraq. Any facility they suspect of weapons development will be pounded into dust. They can afford to do no less. Ahmadinejad has stated before his fervent wish to see Israel "wiped from the map".
Iranian nuclear officials say 54,000 centrifuges would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such as the one being built by Russia that is near completion at the southern city of Bushehr. Experts have estimated Iran would need only 1,500 centrifuges to produce a nuclear weapon.
Tehran insists it is only seeking to generate low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and not the highly enriched variety needed for weapons. It also denies it is building a heavy water research reactor at Arak in order to obtain plutonium for nuclear arms, asserting it only wants to produce radioactive isotopes for medical research and treatment.
I find it hard to believe that any society that still publicly flogs female fornicators needs, or even wants, cutting edge materials for medical research. They are a beligerant, aggressive culture. They have been mostly passive-aggressive, as evidenced by their clandestine arming of Hezbollah. But now they are on the verge of creating weapons that will allow them to act confidently and in a more overt manner.
I hope the UN has learned its lesson from North Korea. Harsh sanctions are needed to stop any weapons research. But thanks to blocking efforts from Russia and China, they will most likely emerge as watered-down and ineffectual.
Thank God for the UN.
The U.N. Security Council on Friday urged North Korea not to carry out a planned nuclear-weapon test and warned Pyongyang of unspecified consequences if it did.
...
It warned North Korea that a nuclear test would lead to further unspecified Security Council action "consistent with its responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations."
Unspecified Consequences. How... vague. In international-diplomacy-speak I think that means "nothing".
North Korea is once again engaging in empty sabre rattling. Seriously, do they truly think their nuclear capabilities would stop anyone pounding them in the dust? Percision bomb them from high altitude, and take over the country by actually feeding it's people. I don't think there would be much insurgent action. I have yet to meet anyone who is violently opposed to eating real food.
Even China is starting to edge away from North Korea like a friend who has discovered exactly where that strange smell is coming from.
It seems everytime the world is ignoring them they make the threat of Nuclear Anihilation. Kinda of like the worlds' biggest "Look at me! Look at me! I'm relevant!" Unfortunately for the largely innocent and oppressed people of North Korea, it will be North Korea that gets anhiliated. By their own devices if their track record with technology is any indication. Their last message to the world will probably be "Whoops!"
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