Thursday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 1.12.2005:

The EU3 Finally Ends Negotiations with Iran.

• The Financial Times reported that Iran’s defiant decision to resume what it calls “research” into nuclear enrichment spells the end of the negotiation strategy.
• Reuters reported that China has offered to help rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
• Tony Blankley, The Washington Times reported that when European diplomats use words like "serious," "grave," "disastrous," "red line for international community," "urge Iran to immediately and unconditionally reverse its decision," the rest of us should take these phrases as unambiguous evidence that an international crisis of the first water is fast building.
• The Wall Street Journal reminds us of the UN's poor record of resolving the Iranian nuclear program.
• Breitbart.com reminded us that Iran has secretly built as many as 5,000 centrifuge machines.
• Reuters reported that Prime Minister Tony Blair called for the U.N. Security Council to consider action against Iran adding: "we obviously don't rule out any measures at all."

The Iranian Response.

• Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Monsters & Critics reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: 'The Iranian government and nation has no fear of the Western ballyhoo and will continue its nuclear programmes with decisiveness and wisdom.'
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “In the near future, full nuclear energy for peaceful purposes will be at our disposal.”
• Iranian Republic News Agency reported that former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said: "The arrogance and its allies will be regretful if they obstruct the Iranian nation's access to the latest science."
• The Financial Times published a report on the head of Iran's nuclear negotiating team, Mr. Larijani.

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Iran Press News reported that the regimes brutal disciplinary forces, in the city of Ahvaz, harassed civilians chanting anti-regime slogans.
• Amnesty International called for an inquiry needed in the death of Baha'i prisoner of conscience.
• Iran Press News reported that the Islamic regimes brutal disciplinary forces attacked a party that was being held in one of Esfahans gardens and arrested 72 people.
• Iran Press News reported that in the Islamic regime, homeless children eat out of garbage bins.
• The Jerusalem Post reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to convene a conference in Iran denying the Holocaust within a few days.
• Michael Ledeen, National Review Online reminded us that we are already fighting Iran in Iraq.
• Iran Press News reported that Iranian Commanders of the army alarmed by political changes in Syria & Lebanon.
• Richard Brookhiser, The New York Observer looks at the world after Sharon: what to do about Iran?
• Iran Press News reported on the sudden trip of Bolivian President-elect to Iran.
• Rooz Online reported Haji Najjar, the acting director of the Political Bureau of the Joint Chief of Staff of the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards revealed that measures were underway to stockpile military preparedness and that there were “300 sensitive nuclear sites” in the country.
• Shervin Omidvar, Rooz Online reported that Rahim Safavi, the commander of the Passdaran, when asked whether sabotage may have been the cause of the most recent air crash said, “Such a possibility has not been raised at this time."
• Rooz Online reported on Ahmadinejad's hopeless quest for an auspicious Islamic government.
• And finally, Cox & Forkum published a cartoon: Fallout.