Iran snubs UN resolution

Reuters/NY Times:

Iran condemned a U.N. sanctions resolution as "a piece of torn paper" that would not scare Tehran and vowed on Sunday to accelerate uranium enrichment work immediately.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology, in an attempt to stop uranium enrichment work that could produce material to be used in bombs.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said those who backed the U.N. resolution, drawn up by Britain, France and Germany but supported unanimously by the Security Council, would soon regret their "superficial act".

"It is a piece of torn paper ... by which they aim to scare Iranians ... It is in the Westerners' interest to live with a nuclear Iran," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

"Give up this muppet game. You (the backers of the resolution) cannot send secret friendly messages to us and at the same time show your teeth and claws. End this dual game," Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying in a speech at the former U.S. embassy in Tehran.

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If it is a superficial act why is he so exercised about it? Yet there is little substance behind it. The Iranians fear that it is just the first step and that future more tough sanctions will follow when these obviously do not work. North Korea and Iran are doing a pretty good job of demonstrating the impotence of the UN in the early stages of a sanction regime. Whether the UN will have the intestinal fortitude to do more is a very open question. The Russians seem to be the chief protector of rogue regimes. As long as they have a veto and do not feel threatened by their client rogues it is unlikely that more will be done.

Joel Rosenberg has listing of Putin's deals with the devils.

AFP is reporting that Iran is installing 3000 new centrifuges at one of its nuclear plants starting today.