Irans boundless chutzpah
, עודכן
The Arab-language Iranian television network, Al-Alam, revealed a scoop on Wednesday. Tehran is threatening to suspend oil exports to six European countries. Its decision comes in response to the EUs embargo on Iranian oil, which was enacted Jan. 23 but wont go into effect until the summer. The director of the Iranian Foreign Ministrys Western Europe department, Hassan Tajik, was quick to placate the Europeans: Iran will not follow through on this threat, for now, out of humanitarian concern, in light of the cold wave gripping Europe. Irans chutzpah knows no bounds.
This news item offers a classic example of Iranian conduct: threats accompanied by caresses, promises hand in hand with violations, and, overall, a whole lot of chutzpah and lies. It started, of course, with this weeks wave of terror plots against Israeli diplomats abroad (New Delhi, Tbilisi, Bangkok). Iran denies any connection to those incidents. Theres just one problem: Short of leaving pistachio nuts at the crime scene, Iran left behind every possible fingerprint, in a long trail leading from India to Georgia.
The Iranian fiesta continued Wednesday with the announcement that Iran had made significant progress on two aspects of its nuclear program. As Ahmadinejad promised (and he didnt lie for a change), the first was to install Iranian-made nuclear fuel rods at the small research facility near Tehran, and the second was to independently develop and manufacture fourth-generation centrifuges for enriching uranium.
If Iran is not lying, and it usually doesnt with negative things, it will be able to go on and enrich uranium to 90 percent of the level required to build an nuclear bomb. Tehran, of course, continues to report that the enrichment is for civilian purposes.
As if Iran wasnt generating enough news reports, there is now the threat to Europes oil supply. Iran held a harsh meeting with ambassadors from the threatened countries, during which they were told that Iran is now willing to resume dialogue with world powers after a year-long pause. Saeed Jalili, the head of Irans Supreme Council for National Security, even took the trouble to respond to a letter sent by the EU foreign minister in October. Again, Irans chutzpah knows no bounds. After all, the dialogue is supposed to be about halting the regimes uranium enrichment. And what were the Iranians congratulating themselves for on Wednesday?
In brief, Iran this week has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth, with Ahmadinejad playing the role of a Persian Pinocchio. But lets not be deluded. Behind this weeks Iranian fiesta lies a bomb. And that is the only certainty in this column.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו