By ERIC MARGOLIS, QMI Agency
To fete the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gleefully announced his nation will enrich uranium to 20%.
- David Frum: Don't start bombing Iran just yet
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"Go ahead — hit me.”
That’s what the Iranian regime is saying to the United States.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims his scientists have enriched a batch of uranium to 20% radioactivity, well past the level needed for electricity production, but closer to the 90% level required for warheads. He boasted that his country should now be considered a “nuclear state.”
Nations bent on nuclear breakout do not usually issue progress reports. They move stealthily, until they are ready to detonate a finished weapon. That’s what India did in the 1970s, Pakistan in the 1990s, North Korea in the 2000s. By contrast, the Iran nuclear program issues press releases like a second-place political campaign. Why? Two possible answers:
Michael Petrou reports on an organization in Toronto that describes itself as a non-partisan centre for Iranian culture and scholarship, but is in fact funded by the Iranian embassy in Ottawa. Founded by a well-connected Iranian diplomat, The Center for Iranian Studies, located at 290 Sheppard Ave. W., was incorporated in January 2008. One of its three directors at the time was Fazel Larijani, who was then Iran's cultural attaché in Ottawa. He is the brother of Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, and Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, head of the judiciary.
It is now time to begin to name names, dates, and places, writes Samira Mohyeddin, whose torments readers will remember from this column. "These students, a lot of them bursary students, were in many of my classes and were adamant supporters of the Islamic Republic. It was often noted by other students that these students from Iran would spy on those of us who would vocalise our opposition to the Iranian regime. I myself have been threatened on numerous occasions, particularly while writing for the University of Toronto newspaper, The Varsity."
