Iran Set For Nuclear Final Stages

Iran announced today that they are entering the final stages of their nuclear program.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday Iran was about to take the "final step" in a nuclear program which the U.N. has called on it to curtail and which the West fears may be used to make atomic bombs.

Ahmadinejad did not say what the final step was, but he repeated comments he made this week that Iran would celebrate its "right to nuclear technology" by March, the end of the Iranian year, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Tehran, which says its nuclear aims are peaceful, faces possible sanctions for ignoring U.N. demands to halt sensitive atomic work, but there is no agreement at the U.N. Security Council on any penalties.

Analysts say this may be encouraging Iran in its defiant stance.

"The Iranian nation is about to take its final step in the nuclear issue," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. He added that Iran would "resist until the end".

"I hope that by the end of the year we will be able to hold celebrations about the Iranian nation's right to nuclear technology," he said.

In comments carried by Iran's Mehr News Agency, the president said: "This path that Iran has chosen is irreversible and big powers should not make useless efforts to prevent the Iranian nation from moving forward."

Does this warm anyone's heart? Frankly speaking, I think its just about time that something serious was done ot Iran to halt their program. They aren't doing it willingly, and we know that in the end, their research is going to lead to nuclear weapons. That's what Mahmoud "I-Wanna-Jihad" Ahmadinejad wants. He wants the nukes so he can take out Israel. And speaking of Iranian and Israeli relations, YNET has a story about the Iranian papers, and how they're predicting a war with Israel.

Iranian newspapers Kehyan and and Resalat have urged Muslims around the world to prepare for a 'great war' to destroy the State of Israel.

The newspapers published the editorials, translated from Persian by MEMRI , the Middle East translation service, to mark 'Quds' day on October 20, an Iranian 'holiday' calling for the "liberation" of Jerusalem and war against Israel.

"Hizbullah destroyed at least half of Israel in the Lebanon war... Now only half the path (to its destruction) remains," an editorial in the conservative Keyhan newspaper declared.

"It was proven that, by means of an offensive operation that need not be equal to Israel's moves, it is possible to neutralize the Zionist navy," the article said triumphantly.

So, Iran is calling for the attack of Israel upon all of its soldiers and supporters, plus they're getting close to the end of their nuclear research. I really think its time we take measures that go beyond harsh language and empty threats. Isolation, at this point, can't be an option. If they obtain the ability to create a working nuclear warhead, Israel is going bye-bye, and so will any other nation who stands in Iran's way.

Now "I'm A Dinner Jacket" (as our editor likes to call him) isn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination. He's smart, cagey, and shrewd, and there's no way he'd play a game of international chicken with just one nuke. He'll have more in the wings when he launches his strike against Israel. He knows that if he brings only one to this fight, it may not be enough to take out Israel completely, and he can't retaliate if other nations jump in, and fire a few of theirs at Iran, including the US.

Also, Yaakov Lappin has a piece at YNET regarding the Iranian messiah. We've heard this song and dance before from Ahmadinejad. He's spoken about it often. But some thinking heads have gone over the information, and have a revelation for the world. The nukes have a purpose ...

"There is a link between Iran’s nuclear weapons program on one hand, and its ideology of trying to facilitate a cataclysmic event to hasten the return of the Mahdi. As a result, no conceivable positive or negative incentives will influence the leadership of the clerics and the revolutionary guards from acquiring nuclear weapons. They need nuclear weapons in order to facilitate the ideological precepts of the return of the Mahdi," said Tanter.

"The process of diplomacy as far as Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are concerned is to prevent sanctions that would constrain the nuclear weapons progress, and to that extent Iran has done well to drag out this process," he added.

Citing realist arguments that Iran needs nuclear weapons "to deter neighbors in a tough neighborhood," Tanter said such views were misguided. "These nuclear weapons are tied to the return of the Mahdi, and no one says this," he says.

An excerpt from 'What Makes Iran Tick' left no doubts over the authors view of Iran's intentions: "Just as it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting, so it is in the nature of the ayatollahs ruling Iran to establish an Islamic empire and destroy Israel."

It continued: "Toward these ends, the regime pursues nuclear weapons, subverts Iraq, and supplies money and arms to Islamist terrorist groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad… The deliberate initiation of war with Israel in July 2006 by Hizbullah, most probably at the direction of the Iranian regime, confirmed the worst fears about Ahmadinejad… a nuclear-armed Iran the single greatest security threat to the international community in general, and to the United States and Israel in particular."

Nuclear weapons in the hands of an extremist, commanding a regime that wants Israel and the West destroyed or subjugated. Kind of gives you pause when you think about it, and where the world's headed, huh?

We've dawdled long enough over Iran. Israel claims they could have a working plan to strike Iran within six months, but what if that's too late? The sand is pouring through the hourglass, and time is of the essence. The clock is ticking, and the world's keeping score here, and for the good guys, we're not doing too hot on this one. Further, the international community seems unwilling to address the threat of Iran; preferring instead to worry about climate change and global warming (which ought to send a clear message to the world how ineffective Kooky Uncle Kofi's leadership has been). I've got news for them. It'll get real warm real quick if Iran gets nukes. And as for their environmental platform, what sort of damage do they foresee from nuclear exchanges, hmm?

Publius II