Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad referred to the United Nations as an “illegitimate” body whose agreement for resolutions on Iran’s nuclear program were “torn pieces of paper.”

I am not about to argue on behalf of the UN nor whether the sanctions are worth torn sheets of paper, I think he actually has a point in both, but it is quite odd for Ahmadinejad to discount the United Nations Security Council and the entire body yet desire to speak in front of the UNSC before the vote for sanctions is held. If the UN has no legitimacy and the agreement is worth nothing, why would Ahmadinejad care?

In a letter to the council’s president yesterday, Iran requested that Mr. Ahmadinejad address the 15-member body before it votes on the proposed resolution, according to two council diplomats who spoke to The New York Sun on condition of anonymity.

Iran also asked the State Department to allow an entry visa to Mr. Ahmadinejad and 38 of his associates so they can travel to New York on a date “to be determined,” an American official said.

It is widely expected that if Ahmadinejad is granted entry into the United States, which there’s no question he will be if the UNSC will allow him to speak, he will slam the UN, the UNSC, the United States, England, Israel and Porky Pig while throwing a few jabs towards the film ‘300′ as a Hollywood Zionist plot to make Iranians out to be animals. Actually, the last two are merely guesses, but the previous are all but guaranteed to happen.

The agreement between the permanent nations and Germany includes the following:

Under the draft, Iran would be banned from supplying, selling or transferring “any arms or related material” and all countries would be prohibited from buying Iranian weapons.

The proposed resolution doesn’t ban arms imports to Iran but calls on all nations “to exercise vigilance and restraint” in supplying tanks, combat aircraft and other heavy weapons.

In the financial area, it urges all governments and financial institutions not to make any new commitments “of grants, financial assistance, or concessional loans” to the Iranian government.

There is no travel ban, but all countries would be asked to exercise “vigilance and restraint” on the entry or transit through their territory of the individuals whose assets have been frozen. The draft would also require all countries to report the transit or entry of any of these people to the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Iran.

When asked where the teeth of this proposal is, only crickets could be heard chirping.

The first measure is more of a continuation of previous UN resolutions seeking to bar Iran from arming Hezbollah. Since we all know that has worked wonders, there is little doubt if this resolution passes arms export bans will work in similar fashion, which is to say not at all. There will be no “vigilance and restraint” given to arms sales to Iran, nor will the same be made for finances or travel.

I’d rather be optimistic, but this is the UN we’re speaking about and the same conditions were agreed upon previously before Russia sold anti-aircraft weaponry to Iran and before Russia decided to continue to build Iranian nuclear facilities. Do not expect Moscow to restrain from either even though they agreed to the resolutions, and I am more than willing to wager Russia was the main country that opposed a resolution that actually means something other than just being “torn pieces of paper.”

Just over two years after a suicide bomber killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rufik Harir, a UN investigation into the events has finally come to at least one conclusion. The UN finds the bomber “grew up in a polluted city.” It took two years to take a tissue sample and find that out.

Thanks! Thanks for everything and everyone at the crack staff of the United Nations. They’re now that much closer to finding out of Bashar Assad’s fingerprints are on the murder, but that will be found out in the next ten years or thirty.

“We will use it for peaceful [purposes in the] energy [sector], medicine, agriculture, and industry. The [IAEA] cameras are there, you can come and see. They film it all the time and conduct inspections. All our nuclear activities are transparent.” - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The IAEA report to the United Nations Security Council has been submitted, and just as everyone expected, the report points out Iran has not fully complied nor has the nation been transparent despite repeated statements by the Iranian leadership transparency was achieved. To further complicate matters, the IAEA report stated Iran has not just expanded the nation’s nuclear program, but that it is advancing faster than previously thought.

In its resolution in December, the Security Council gave Iran 60 days to suspend its enrichment operations and to answer a series of questions that nuclear inspectors have posed for more than a year. Those include requests, based on information found on a laptop computer that German and American officials apparently obtained from an Iranian scientist, that Iran say whether it is working on a way to integrate a nuclear weapon with the re-entry vehicle mounted on its medium-range ballistic missiles.

But the Iranians have provided no answers, they said. As a result, the atomic agency inspectors reported today that they are unable “to make further progress” in efforts to verify Iran’s past nuclear activities.

Moreover, the Iranians have sharply restricted the inspectors’ access to many of the sites they once were free to visit. As a result, the report said, many open questions remain unresolved, not least concerning a finding of traces of highly-enriched uranium — the kind that can be used to build a bomb — on some equipment. (source)

In addition to these findings, the IAEA report indicated Iran refused to have IAEA cameras installed in the Natanz complex, which again contradicts Ahmadinejad’s comments as shown above. Other key findings of the report:

1. In a letter dated 23 January 2007, Iran declined to agree at this stage on the use of remote
   monitoring, and requested the Agency to provide a detailed legal basis for the implementation of remote monitoring, as well as examples of where such measures were already being implemented in sensitive facilities in other States. The Agency provided clarifications to Iran in a letter dated 9 February 2007 and is awaiting Iran’s response.
2. During the design information verification (DIV) carried out at FEP on 17 February 2007, Agency inspectors were informed that two 164-machine cascades had been installed and were operating under acuum and that another two 164-machine cascades were in the final stages of installation. In light of his, in a letter dated 19 February 2007, the Agency requested that arrangements be made for the elocation of cameras into the cascade hall during the Agency’s next visit to FEP, which is scheduled to take place between 3 and 5 March 2007. The issue of remote monitoring remains to be resolved.
3. Iran has not yet responded to the Agency’s long outstanding requests for clarification concerning, and access to carry out further environmental sampling of, other equipment and materials related to the Physics Research Centre (PHRC); nor has Iran agreed to permit the Agency to interview another former Head of the PHRC.
4. Iran has not agreed to any of the required transparency measures, which are essential for the clarification of certain aspects of the scope and nature of its nuclear programme.
5. As underscored by the Director General at the meeting of the Board of Governors in November 2006 (GOV/OR. 1174, paras 86–94), given the existence in Iran of activities undeclared to the Agency for 20 years, it is necessary for Iran to enable the Agency, through maximum cooperation and transparency, to fully reconstruct the history of Iran’s nuclear programme. Without such cooperation and transparency, the Agency will not be able to provide assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran or about the exclusively peaceful nature of that programme.

If Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful, which the nation repeatedly maintains it is, why would they go to such effort to hide different aspects of their program?

A United Nations warning indicates there are a “significant number of Arab militia” forming in Sudan, likely to be the pro-government Janjawid.  The United Nations doesn’t have a clue what this militia is doing, but if they are indeed connected to the Sudanese government, it is more than reasonable to assume they are wishing to join the jihad against Africans in the Darfur region of Sudan that has killed on the basis of skin color across religious lines.

The Government denies having responded by unleashing the Janjawid, which is blamed for numerous rapes and murders, but members of the militia have said that they were armed by government forces.

Yet the government has done little to nothing to stop what has been termed as genocide in Darfur, and there are strong links to these militia groups to the mass murder of thousands of Darfur refugees.

Jihad against Muslims: the ever-growing element of modern jihad that Islamists don’t talk about openly, yet seem to approve of.

The United Nations Security Council’s deadline for Iran to cease enriching uranium came and went with little more than a bombastic Iranian response, clearing the way for sanctions to be imposed upon Iran.  However, those sanctions will not go into effect immediately, if they ever actually will go into effect.

It’s more of the same from the feckless United Nations and the member-states who make decisions and fail to abide by them.  When states who voted in favor of the proposed sanctions if Iran did not comply start to have second doubts, it turns the validity of the UNSC on its head and renders it impotent.

The official IAEA report is scheduled to be delivered to the UNSC as soon as today, and Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Financial Times Iran was “overwhelmingly likely to miss a UN deadline on Wednesday to suspend enrichment.”  In fact, ElBaradei’s report is reportedly going to detail how Iran is close to industrial enrichment.  It is that industrial capacity, ElBaradei maintains, that is the “point of no return.”

So on the day the deadline passed, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at the UNSC and whom he sees runs the opposition to Iran’s ‘peaceful’ nuclear program.

“The West was used to dealing with governments that submitted to their impositions while now it has found a government like Iran’s which ignors its warnings and continues to follow its road.”

“Our attitude has wounded Westerners who have decided to react with rage,” he added.

I suppose Ahmadinejad’s own rhetoric of destruction of a number of nations was not rage, but rather calmly collected thought from an irrational mind.

In an interview with the Financial Times conducted a few days ago, which I cannot locate at this point in time, ElBaradei stated there’s little question any potential crisis could be averted if Iran merely was transparent.  He also argued for direct talks between Tehran and Washington D.C., however I still don’t see how that could solve anything when Iran’s nuclear program has rankled many nations and not just the United States.  It is quite striking how nations within the Middle East have formed remarkable alliances in response to what they see as an Iranian threat.

Benny Avni of The New York Sun reports an American proposal at the United Nations, to which 72 other nations wanted to co-sponsor the bill, would draft into law an automatic condemnation to nations who deny the Holocaust.  The bill, Avni reports, is “largely seen as aimed at increasing Iran’s diplomatic isolation.”

Diplomats from nations in the Group of 77 voting bloc, which represents the world’s poorer countries, said yesterday that while many diplomats are aware the resolution is aimed at isolating Iran, Tehran’s envoys have made little effort so far to lobby against it. While Iran may make a late attempt to scuttle the American-led resolution, such an effort is not expected to gain much traction.

“I don’t think many will support the opposition to this resolution,” the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, who heads the Group of 77, told The New York Sun.

The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, who is among the resolution’s co-sponsors, noted yesterday that the document does not mention Iran by name.

According to the proposed resolution, the assembly would condemn “without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust” and would urge its 192 member states “unreservedly to reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part.”

That’s all fine and good as far as placing Iran further into diplomatic isolation, but should there be a law against lunacy?  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m certainly not among those who deny the Holocaust, but I don’t believe there should be a law to condemn anyone for making an outrageous statement or conducting an exercise in futility, such as the Holocaust Conference in Iran late last year.

Iran has stepped up the ante regarding denying or questioning the Holocaust for one purpose and one purpose only.  It gets the nation publicity and diverts attention away from other Iranian issues, such as a rancid human rights record, a tyranical regime, a nuclear program and the many, many state-sponsored terrorist organizations operating throughout the world.  It’s a diversion, and it appears the UN has falled hook, line and sinker for it.

A friend who lives in Jordan once told me that if an Arab does not question the Holocaust then they are part of a fractional minority.  I replied, “it sucks to live in a nation filled with idiots.”  And that’s what those who deny the Holocaust are, but they are not criminals.

When the Danish cartoons of Muhammad came out, or at least three months later after the manufactured outcry, we were treated to soundbites proclaiming denying the Holocaust is illegal yet ‘desecration’ of the Islamic prophet is not.  It was hypocrisy we were told.  I fail to see it, but ask yourself what is next if the UN decides to openly condemn the simple and asinine chore of denying the Holocaust.  Will those who deny Muhammad was a prophet also be condemned in the future?  It’s a historical event, admittedly with more questions than whether or not the Holocaust came to be, but I can’t help but be rather cynical when I’ve been told denying the Holocaust is in the majority in the Middle East yet Avni reports Arab members of the Group of 77 voting block intend to vote for the measure.

Our buddy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the apocalyptic Iranian president, appears to be facing some hardships in Tehran among Iranian politicians, Iranians and the Mullahs who actually run the nation.

“One has to deal with the enemy with wisdom,” [Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri] said. “We should not provoke the enemy, otherwise the country will be faced with problems.

“We should get our right in a way that it does not create problems or excuses for others,” he said. (source)

There’s always a mixed bag though when it comes to Iranian actions.  A newspaper owned by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticized Ahmadinejad’s firm stance with respect to Iran’s nuclear program and the UN actions against the nation.

Even so, Iran also announced they will bar 38 IAEA nuclear inspectors from Tehran in retaliation of the UNSC vote to impose sanctions upon Iran.  Not every IAEA inspector is barred from Iran, which likely means Iran is picking and choosing which inspectors should enter the nation on behalf of the IAEA and the UN.  Iran has done this in the past, calling for the ouster of Chris Charlier when Charlier came to the conclusion Iran’s nuclear program was designed for military purposes.  The IAEA capitulated to Iran’s protests over Charlier, and it appears they will do the same for the 38 nuclear inspectors Iran has decided should not be a part of the IAEA inspection team.

It’s not just Iran’s nuclear program which has Ahmadinejad facing his own political apocalypse.  It’s also Iran’s economy which has struggled since the nation decided nuclear energy was a must as opposed to using the vast oil and natural gas reserves within its borders to power the nation’s power grids.

New United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is biased towards Iran, or so is the charge given out by Tehran with regards to the nation’s nuclear program.

The spokesman of foreign minister Seyyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the secretary general had made “surprising and disappointing” statements on Iran’s nuclear programme. “We expected from the new secretary general more impartiality while his position does not reflect the spirit of equality which should characterise the United Nations.”

Speaking after his first meeting with US president George W. Bush, Ban Ki-moon defined Iran’s nuclear policy a threat to peace and stability in the Middle East. On the same occasion, the secretary general also said he was against a preventive military strike on Iranian nuclear installations, something Bush has not ruled out in the past.

Ki-Moon said exactly the right things though.  The Security Council voted to impose sanctions upon on Iran, sanctions which have not gone into effect by the way, noting the UN’s own IAEA has problems with Iran’s nuclear program and the transparency thereof.  Iran is therefore a threat to peace and stability in the region according to the United Nations.

It would have been wrong of Ki-Moon to state he supports military action against Iran, as in his position he must still argue for peace and be against wars.

Tehran probably thought Ki-Moon would be comparable to Kofi Annan, and in this respect we should all be thankful he is not.  Whether Moon turns into an Annan, catering to the Liberal elite within the United States and refusing to hear all sides of a situation, has yet to be determined.  But thus far Ki-Moon’s statement on Iran and his statement saying the death penalty should be a decision for each nation to make, which he was criticized for not towing the anti-death penalty UN stance, are signs Ki-Moon is not Annan’s second coming.  We can hope those signs are true to form.

Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Oz) was expected to outline a plan to deny all funding to the war in Iraq, something in which has been rumored to be making the rounds in the Democratic leadership, but Kucinich also was expected to call for a United Nations-led military force inside Iraq.

To no one’s surprise, Kucinich didn’t exactly say which nations would fill such a UN force or how the United Nations having no military could send a military force to Iraq. It’s not known if Kucinich has planned out how many soldiers UN member states could send to Iraq, nor if he wants the United States to partake in such an excursion.

Also to no one’s surprise, Kucinich did not say how the United Nations should better patrol peacemakers acting as pimps and fornicators to a nation’s 12 year-old girls.

In reality the United Nations should have had a greater role in Iraq, but following an Al Qaida in Iraq bombing of the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad on April 20, 2003 the UN pulled completely out of Iraq. Now those diplomats weren’t the fighting type therefore they couldn’t exactly keep the peace in a nation ridden with sectarian strife and terrorist attacks from global Islamist organizations, but at the first sign of adversity the UN cut and run.

Now Kucinich wants the United Nations to handle all ‘peace-keeping’ duties in Iraq? The organization still hasn’t filled UNIFIL with a paltry number in comparison the number of soldiers needed for Iraq.

UPDATE: Apparently on Neil Cavuto’s show, Kucinich states “you can’t win the war militarily.”  Of coruse he was speaking about Iraq.

If you can’t win in Iraq militarily, then why would Kucinich want the United Nations to move a military force into the nation to ‘keep the peace?’

The Times of London reports the United States Ambassador to Indonesia, Lynn Pascoe, is the frontrunner to obtain the vaunted Secretary-General for Political Affairs position at the United Nations. The S.G. for Political Affairs is the top political post. The Times reports England wished to gain that spot, which makes me wonder if the following is just sour grapes.

The UN’s political chief is responsible for mediation efforts in sensitive hotspots such as Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and the Palestinian territories, where an American will find it hard to distance himself from official US policy.

That is certainly true, that Pascoe might argue on behalf of the United States in several matters, but it is just as presumable a British diplomat would argue on behalf of England, a French diplomat would argue on behalf of France, etc. Or is it just that it’s an American who might get this top position that rankles the Times? One wonders.

In what symbolizes my angst towards the United Nations, following the execution of Saddam Hussein, new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated “the issue of capital punishment is for each and every member state to decide.” What a groundbreaking statement! The UN Secretary General is in favor of member states having their own laws to guide their own decisions.

Ki-Moon was out of step with his UN colleagues, as he soon found out when the furor over not stating the UN’s objection to capital punishment. But the UN finally got something right, and for that the new S.G. was lambasted.

Who knows, maybe Pascoe wil remind the United Nations it’s function is to provide common ground on numerous issues, but not intervene within each individual state’s own right to determine legislation.