Iran

The Washington Post, last week:

Five weeks ago, Iran's new president bought his country some time. Facing mounting criticism after walking away from negotiations with Europe and restarting part of Iran's nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked the world to withhold diplomatic pressure while he put together new proposals.

On Saturday, dozens of international diplomats, including the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, gathered at the United Nations to hear how Ahmadinejad planned to stave off a crisis.

Instead his speech, followed by a confused hour-long news conference, was able to do what weeks of high-level U.S. diplomacy had not: convince skeptical allies that Iran may, in fact, use its nuclear energy program to build atomic bombs.

Ahmadinejad said: “[I]f some try to impose their will on the Iranian people through resort to a language of force and threat with Iran, we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue.” (Emphasis added.)

Two days later, Iran threatened to refuse IAEA nuclear inspections and to start enriching uranium, a step towards developing nuclear weapons, if the IAEA referred Iran to the U.N. Security Council. (BBC, USA Today.)

The IAEA passed a resolution Saturday requiring that Iran be referred to the Security Council at some unspecified future date. Today, Iran's Parliament fast-tracked a bill to block IAEA inspections. (Reuters.)

Iran shares a border with Iraq to the west and with Afghanistan to the east; the country's entire southern border is on the Persian Gulf. Iran is a charter member of the Axis of Evil.