With a mixture of half-answers and quarter-stances, and with deliberate obscurity, Iran responds to the initiatives and suggestions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and of Western countries. Instead of providing direct answers to direct questions, Tehran resorts to addressing the issues of international security, imperialist hegemony and other similar matters unconnected to its nuclear program, which it still claims to conform to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This kind of behavior has upset the Director General of the IAEA Mohamed El-Baradei, who is subject almost daily to accusations in the Western media of supporting Iran and providing cover for its violations of its commitments towards the agency. More importantly, the rate of attempts to be clever in Iran's responses has angered Russia, which remains Iran's only ally from among the great powers (China has different considerations in this respect). Moscow has directed a number of negative messages to Iranian officials by announcing that they were postponing launching the Bushehr reactor and were reconsidering the deal over the S300 missiles. Moscow is also hinting that it would support imposing new sanctions on Iran. Iranian authorities seem perfectly relaxed and reassured of the fact that Iran will not be subject to any international measures that would threaten its program and its stability. Indeed after the success of the Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) in their coup against the June 12 elections and in besieging the religious establishment, and the weakness of international reactions to the violations suffered by those who opposed the regime, it seemed that the internal crisis had become a thing of the past, or at least had become less dangerous, receding into a state of normalcy that could be managed with a minimum of the violence and noise that attract the world's ire. Added to that are the Barack Obama Administration's focus on seeking solutions to the problems of the economy and health care at the domestic level, the increasing collapse of the state in Afghanistan, the obstacles that hinder the cohesion and formation of the state in Iraq, up to the inability to obtain any concession, however formal, from the Israeli government on the issue of settlement-building or on negotiations over the final situation with the Palestinians. All of these are matters that reinforce the stringency of Iran's stance and tempt those who take them to raise their voices and voice their opinions on the internal affairs of Arab countries, under sectarian and “defiant” pretexts that involve truly insulting “lessons”. On the other hand, it is no secret that Iran's current stringency contributes to blocking the way to all peaceful initiatives and efforts (among them those exerted by Turkey, which does not want – despite everything its most recent stances have been charged with – to fall into a state of open conflict with the United States or with Israel). Fiery Iranian statements, which surpass those of the leaders of the Kremlin in its heyday, would encourage one to believe that the authorities in Tehran are driving towards a broad explosion, one they would prefer to take place outside of their territory of course. Ahmadinejad's government and the apparatus that supports it is not the only one aspiring to an encounter that would redefine the size of influence and the balance of power in the region. Tehran is also not the only one to have imperial ambitions. Yet the methods used by Ahmadinejad, which rely on the assumption that others will be unable or unwilling to defend their interests, will, when the fighting breaks out, only lead to more tragedies, suffered primarily by the Arab peoples of the region. If the mentality of standing at the edge of the abyss is what is driving Iranian rule, then perhaps it would be useful to remind of the fact that the verbal and stylistic play upon which Iranian responses to international demands rely is not sufficient to change the facts to Tehran's benefit, but only paves the way to disasters and encounters that could be avoided.
