Intelligence On Iran/None In Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to be enjoying himself. He always seems to, when he feels he has the world on the run. Or when he's addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations and chortling about how Iran's plans to eliminate Israel from the world map seems to be an agreeable solution to the world's problems, because there's not even a general intake of disbelief.

Not even when he dreams about a nimbus of light surrounding his head, indisputably indicating that the Hidden Imam is hovering over him, approving of every word, nudging him to give it a try, work harder at getting those nuclear warheads into place. Well, the regime is going all out for that little world-class achievement. And it's had ample assistance from those eager to see it succeed.

And it will, we have it on the intelligence gathered by the world's foremost authority on the subject: "Iran today has the technical, scientific and industrial capability to eventually produce nuclear weapons. While international pressure against Iran has increased, including through sanctions, we assess that Tehran is not close to agreeing to abandoning its nuclear program." Thus saith Lt.-Gen.Ronald Burgess, director of the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency.

One can visualize Iran's Grand Ayatollah Khamenei squirming with grim satisfaction over the world's rapt attention to each and every new statement that issues out of Tehran. The latest, that it has all by its own clever self, engineered its own new centrifuges to enrich uranium more speedily to the 22% it is so eager to achieve, saw President Ahmadinejad simply hugging himself with triumphant joy.

The regime's countless warnings that it plans to choke off the Strait of Hormuz and make the world suffer during these cold winter months without their oil supplies in reflection of what the sanctions are doing to Iran's own supplies have thus far not surpassed blathering bombast. It would, of course, be interesting to see that happen, and to witness the result.

It is the result that seems to be restraining Iran for the time being. While it is anxious for the approach of the Apocalypse, it has no wish to suffer unduly until the time is precisely ripe. And that time, obviously, has not yet arrived. Pace the firm instructions from Ahmadinejad to his nuclear specialists to hurry up and build an additional four nuclear research reactors.

Meanwhile, Venezuela has stepped into the breach and is providing Iran with the badly needed oil it can no longer import from its traditional sources, while impressing upon the European Union that they may no longer anticipate Iran's crude for their refineries. India has been prevailed upon to cut back on Iranian crude, after the bombing in New Delhi, and Saudi Arabia is filling in.

The question remains: How long can the world wait to be certain that an atomic-bomb-owning Iran will not hasten the Apocalypse?