Ahmadinejad: Iran won't retreat from nuclear path

[Zorro]

Source: AP

Iran won't retreat "one iota" from its nuclear program, but the world is being misled by claims that it seeks atomic weapons, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday in his first reaction since a U.N. watchdog report that Tehran is on the brink of developing a nuclear warhead.

The comments — broadcast live on state TV — contrasted sharply with Western warnings that Iran appears to be engaged in a dangerous defiance of international demands to control the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.

In Paris, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France would support boosting sanctions against Tehran to an "unprecedented scale" if Iran stonewalls investigations, even as Israel and others say that military options are still possible.

Israel's government, however, remained silent over the report, apparently seeking to keep the focus on international pressures and avoid turning the report into a specific showdown between Israel and Iran.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/ahmadinejad-iran-wont-retreat-nuclear-path-084255717.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Times like this I kinda wonder whether Ahmadinejad *wants* someone to bomb his country.

I pick up an overtone of baiting.

[alp227]

2. Iran Escalates Anti-U.S. Rhetoric Over Nuclear Report

Source: NYT

Professing outrage over the release of a United Nations report on Iranian nuclear ambitions, Iran’s leaders escalated their anti-American vitriol on Wednesday, calling the report a fabrication, denouncing its chief author as a Washington stooge and vowing that their country would not be bullied into abandoning its nuclear program.

The tone of their reaction suggested that Iran’s leaders were clearly worried that the long-awaited report, released Tuesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, could sway world opinion and deepen Iran’s isolation, complicating its repeated claims that the goal of the nuclear program is energy, not weapons.

The report, buttressed by voluminous evidence not previously disclosed, concluded that Iran had been secretly engaged in behaviors that suggested it was seeking to construct an atomic weapon. The report also asserted that Iran may be researching ways to deliver a nuclear weapon via a missile warhead. It was the first time that the agency, an arm of the United Nations, had made such assertions.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran led the verbal assault on the report, speaking to crowds during a visit to southwestern Iran on Wednesday. In his first response since the report’s release, he said it had been orchestrated by Iran’s enemies, principally the United States, which he said had dictated the report’s findings.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/world/middleeast/iran-seeks-to-frame-un-nuclear-report-as-american-bullying.htm

[Ian David]

3. Diplomacy: You're Doing it Wrong. n/t

[nineteen50]

4. If the big bully down the street threatening you had a big stick

would you get one also?

[cpwm17]

5. I think it would be a good idea

It's not like anybody in the US threatened to "obliterate them".

It still remains to be seen if Iran is actually trying to develop nukes.