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Iran declares itself 'nuclear state'
Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service
Iran marked the 31st anniversary of its revolution with massive pro-government rallies and a declaration the Islamic republic was now a "nuclear state."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the claim before a huge Tehran crowd as he bragged Iran's atomic scientists had this week enriched uranium to levels that put the country within reach of producing weapons-grade fuel.
He spoke as reports also emerged that Mr. Ahmadinejad had, in a telephone call with Syrian President Bashar Assad, said any attempt by Israel to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear program should be met with Israel's destruction.
Israel, which Mr. Ahmadinejad has infamously said should be "wiped off the map," has continued to say that all options remain open as the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb increases.
"If the Zionist regime . . . initiates a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all," Mr. Ahmadinejad told Mr. Assad on Wednesday evening, according to a report yesterday by IRIB, Iran's state broadcaster.
But at the Tehran rally, Mr. Ahmadinejad repeated long-made claims that the Iranian nuclear program has only peaceful intentions - despite Iran's history of nuclear secrecy and imposition of restrictions on treaty-authorized United Nations inspections.
"One day they said we cannot enrich uranium, but with the resistance of our leader, nation ... and with the help of God, the Iranian nation has become nuclear," Mr. Ahmadinejad said. "They [Americans] want to dominate our region but the Iranian people will never let them do that.
"The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to build nuclear bombs, we would announce it publicly without being afraid of you," he said, clearly taunting skeptical Western powers.
"When we say we don't build nuclear bombs, it means that we won't do that because we don't believe in having it."
Iran said Tuesday it had begun enriching uranium to the 20% level to provide material for a Tehran medical facility. Nuclear experts say that a nation with such a capability could move relatively quickly to producing uranium with the 90% purity optimally sought for nuclear bomb manufacture.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Mr. Ahmadinejad was playing to the crowd and the U.S. did not believe Iran was capable of enriching uranium to that degree.
"Iran has made a series of statements that are ... based on politics, not on physics," he said.
He said U.S. allies were "more united than they've ever been" behind efforts to make Iran rein in its nuclear program through the imposition of new UN Security Council sanctions.
U.S. President Barack Obama expressed uncertainty this week that China, a veto-bearing Security Council measure, was behind the initiative, but Mr. Gibbs said the administration was now confident of Chinese involvement.
"We believe, and I think they believe, it's not in their interest to have a worldwide arms race, and certainly not in their interest economically to have an arms race in the Middle East," he said.
This year's celebration of the 1979 overthrow of the Shah had taken on huge significance amid the reformist backlash that followed June's flawed presidential election, which saw the Islamic regime declare Mr. Ahmadinejad returned to power.
But a massive security clampdown appeared to have blunted opposition hopes of embarrassing the regime on a day Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had pledged to deliver a "punch" that would leave protesters and the West "stunned."
Arrests, many during early morning raids, have been under way for weeks as part of an overall anti-dissident strategy that some analysts believe has been borrowed from the Chinese - whose Communist government is equally intolerant of dissent.
Iran's Green Voice, an opposition website named for the colour adopted by the reformists, said security forces fired shots and tear gas at a rally in central Tehran in support of Mir Hossein Moussavi, a leader of the reform movements and one of the candidates in the June election.
The opposition Kaleme website said plainclothes security officers beat Mr. Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard with batons when she tried to attend the rally, but she "was rescued by Mousavi's supporters."
Another reformist leader, Mehdi Karroubi, had the windows of his car smashed as security forces moved against him and the moderate former president Mohammad Khatami, the website Jaras reported.
Mr. Ahmadinejad had said the authorities would be the "owner" of the day, and large numbers of riot police, members of the Revolutionary Guard and Basij militiamen on motorcycles roamed the back streets near the main squares in search of protesters.
State television showed footage of hundreds of thousands of people, some carrying Iranian flags and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, walking to Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square to hear Mr. Ahmadinejad speak.
Iran declares itself 'nuclear state'
Meanwhile, USA rubbished Iranian claims -
US Dismisses Iran's Nuclear Claims | Middle East | English
One has to agree with the Americans --- Iranians are a whole bunch of liars. From photoshopped missile launch pics, to claims of stealth plane flight to enrichment of nuclear fuel.
That said, one cannot deny the fact that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is just a matter of time.
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