A defiant Iran yesterday basked in the glory of a major breakthrough in its nuclear program, challenging the UN Security Council and shrugging off a broadside of international condemnation.
After the Islamic republic's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced regime scientists had crossed a milestone by successfully enriching uranium to make nuclear fuel, a top military commander declared his country was unstoppable.
"When a people masters nuclear technology and nuclear fuel, nothing can be done against it," boasted armed forces joint chief of staff, General Hassan Firouzabadi.
Iran says its nuclear drive is purely peaceful, but enrichment can be extended to make the fissile core of a bomb. The Islamic regime now risks being slapped with sanctions once a Security Council deadline for it to freeze such work expires on April 28.
"This science is indigenous, and we are capable of making hundreds of [uranium] conversion factories and thousands of centrifuges," ISNA quoted him as saying. "The West can do nothing and is obliged to extend to us the hand of friendship."
Demand for rights
Ahmadinejad meanwhile repeated his call on foreign governments to "recognize and respect Iran's rights" -- presenting a fait accompli to Western powers who have been battling to prevent Iran from acquiring sensitive nuclear know-how.
The firebrand president has also called for a no-holds-barred acceleration of enrichment work, and the country was bristling with a national pride devoid of any fear of international sanctions -- or worse.
"The nuclear fuel cycle is complete, the beginnings of a powerful Iran," the conservative Iranian daily Resalat trumpeted. It also called for a week of "national celebration" and an annual public holiday to mark the event.
State television was meanwhile broadcasting non-stop images of nuclear sites accompanied by rousing patriotic music.
A new phase
International reaction signaled that diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-running crisis would soon enter a more robust phase.
Iran's move "only further underscores why the international community has serious concerns about the regime's nuclear ambitions," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "This is a regime that needs to be building confidence with the international community. Instead, they're moving in the wrong direction."
Russia, which has huge economic interests in Iran's nuclear energy drive, also repeated the Security Council demand for Iran to halt immediately all uranium enrichment work, telling Tehran it had taken a "step in the wrong direction."
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also asserted he was "convinced that there can be no resolution of the problem through use of force," adding that "practically all European countries are in solidarity with Russia."
The British government said "these latest Iranian statements are not helpful," while France and Germany also decried the "step in the wrong direction."
And Japan, a major investor in Iran, lamented that the "extremely regrettable" move "goes against the messages of the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency."
The Israeli military's chief of staff, General Dan Halutz, described a nuclear-powered Iran as "a threat to the whole world and not only Israel."
The Jewish state has come to view the regime in Tehran as its number one enemy, alarmed in particular by a call last year from Ahmadinejad for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as well as his dismissal of the Holocaust as a "myth."
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