Iran-US Tension.

Speaking on Aug. 28 in Tehran just hours before President Bush described the Shi'ite theocracy as the most dangerous of the world's terrorist states, President Ahmadi-Nejad dismissed the US as an empire in decline, with failure in Iraq leaving a "huge power vacuum" that Iran was ready to fill. He said: "The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly. Occupation is the root of all problems in Iraq. It has become clear that occupiers are not able to resolve regional issues" (see rim3-IraqMaliki-US-alMahdiSep3-07).

Ali Ansari, an Iran historian at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and author of "Confronting Iran", says: "Ahmadi-Nejad wants to maintain this mythology that Iran is a great power because it is a nuclear power, and there is this staunch belief that America is an empire in decline...and that Iraq is an indication of this decline... Of course, the more you talk about that, the more you raise the hackles on the side of the Americans, who say, 'You think we are in decline? We'll show you how in decline we are...'. There are elements in the US, as there are elements in Iran, who are keen to provoke a conflict".

The US believe Iran's nuclear plan masks a secret weapons effort. US Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte on Sept. 1 was quoted as saying: "Even if Iran comes clean on the past, its nuclear file cannot be closed until the agency has full insight into the present". The IAEA says Iran is enriching uranium at 3.7% - far from the 90% needed for a bomb - and less than the 4.8% it has achieved. Iran is also short on its declared aims to install new centrifuges. It has fewer than 2,000 in operation, and several hundred more are being tested or assembled. Two sets of UNSC resolutions target Iran over its refusal to suspend enrichment. The US is working on a third resolution, with Washington to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has declared the Iranian nuclear issue the worst crisis in the world, and called for more pressure on Iran to "enable us to escape an alternative that I say is catastrophic: the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran". Ahmadi-Nejad brushed off his comments, saying: "Iran is a nuclear nation and has the fuel cycle".