National Nuclear Day in Iran

Little Mahmoud is feeling his oats.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Monday that his country was now capable of producing nuclear fuel on an "industrial scale" in an expansion of the uranium enrichment program that the United Nations has demanded it halt.

The announcement suggests Iran has succeeded in operating a larger number of centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility in central Iran. The country has said its goal is to install and start working with 3,000 centrifuges.

But Ahmadinejad did not specify how many centrifuges were now operational as he spoke at a ceremony at the facility, marking the one-year anniversary of Iran's first success in enriching small amounts of uranium.

"With great honor, I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale," Ahmadinejad said. The move expands a key nuclear process that the United Nations has demanded the country halt.

Meanwhile, this report at Hot Air say the 3,000 centrifuges are already installed. If so, that's extremely troubling news.

However, since deception is always part of the game, check out Psychopath vs. Psychopath at Pat Dollard, a most interesting account (hat tip: Fight4TheRight).

According to a buzz in the intelligence community, Russia is gearing up to betray Iran. According to sources in Moscow, Putin has quietly decided that he has milked the Iran nuke game for all the political and financial advantage it was worth, and now intends to singlehandedly bring it all back from the brink. He is absolutely not going to allow a cabal of Islamic lunatics to build a Bomb on the Motherland's southern border. How is Russia going to betray Iran and stop them from getting The Bomb? Well since the Iranian bomb was actually coming to them from Russia, Russia has the power to ultimately stop the process. Maybe not frever, but for a long time. And I hope the implications of what I've just said haven't escaped you: all along, we didn't need to worry about Iran "developing" a bomb, we needed to worry about Russia "giving" them one. Somehow, the truth of all this has been kept from the spotlight. At least, if the Moscow Rumor Mill is to be believed, they are not going to go through with it. And the shit that hits the fan between Iran and Russia should be very interesting indeed.

Read the rest.

More thoughts over at The Sandbox.