One day, Ahmadinejad announce that Iran will build 10 nuclear power plants and will enrich uranium as he pleases, the day after other government officials say that the dialogue is still possible.The theater will go on like this for who knows how long. Meanwhile, in reality, the Iranians have yet to complete a nuclear power plant, and the Russians that are building it will complete it, perhaps, only in the course of next year.
The 10 nuclear plants of Ahmadinejad are like those of Berlusconi, a propaganda move which is still far from becoming reality, and who knows if it will ever become. But in the meantime continue the ambiguity of many governments toward Iran, the only government with a clear position is Israel, which would be ready to tighten the sanctions and rightly believes that a strong economic pressure could damage, perhaps even topple a government delegitimised at home and abroad such as the one of Ahmadinejad.
But the United States of Obama continue to hope in dialogue and seek the support of Russia and China. But meanwhile the latter two actually want to keep up the Iranian government as it is. Russia, because should build power plants and has also sold missiles to Iran, even if on American pressure it has not yet delivered them. China because gets so much oil from Iran. Europe too is actually quite content if the regime remains in place: Germany and Italy had flourishing trade with Iran.
Beyond that Ahmadinejad receives international support in Latin America, where he met with President Chavez of Venezuela, the Bolivian Morales and Brazilian Lula. Okay the desire to have an independent american foreign policy, but that the socialist Latin American governments embrace a dictator just like those they fought for decades in their country is really absurd and stupid.
The Iranian regime still thinks he can get on with this game a long time, and perhaps it's right. The United States don't even think about invading Iran, since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have not brought any good results and are far from a solution. But if the regime continues to threaten to build nuclear weapons sooner or later Israel and the United States will decide to bomb, and Iran has absolutely no military capacity to resist. A bit because of the embargo on military supplies, a little bit because as in all dictatorships, the generals are politically chosen and certainly not rewarded on the basis of competence.
While international diplomacy is continuing this dingy little theater dictated by the propaganda moves of Ahmadinejad, Iran continues as usual repression against opponents. The government seized the bank account and the medal of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer who has always defended human rights in the country. Ebadi is now abroad, but her husband was arrested and beaten. Punishment to the activist for having publicly spoken out against Ahmadinejad. Opponents condemned to death in the meantime have become 8, although for none of them has yet been set a date for execution. And three American tourists arrested at the Iraqi border in late July are still being held in Iran, which threatens to prosecute them as spies, this revenge for some past arrests of Iranians in occupied Iraq by the Americans. They have been joined in recent days by 5 British sailors arrested in Iranian waters while sailing from Bahrain to Dubai.
On December 7 is students'day in Iran and the regime has already begun to arrest them to prevent the expected opposition protests. So while Ahmadinejad enjoy teasing the world, the repression against young Iranians continue undisturbed.
Francesco Defferrari
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