Despite the State Department's recent efforts on the Israel-Palestine issue, positive developments in North Korea, and the Vice President's trip to Asia, Iran remains the highest profile issue in U.S. foreign policy. And the last few days have brought a flurry of important news. Here are the major threads to follow:
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tells the world his nuclear program is a like a train with no brakes.
- The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany meet this week to discuss responses now that Iran has failed to meet a deadline for stopping its uranium enrichment program.
- A source inside Iran says the tension between President Ahmadinejad and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are now so high the two men refused to shake hands at a high level political meeting last week. Rafsanjani favors "a more conciliatory stance toward the West in the nuclear dispute."
- A reporter for the British newspaper The Telegraph, writing from on board the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier, warns that America is now ready to take on Iran.
- But another British newspaper, The Sunday Times, says a number of American military leaders are prepared to resign if U.S. President George Bush pushes the country into a war with Iran.
- American reporter Seymour Hersh believes the United States is heading into a military conflict with Iran. He also says a major strategy shift at the White House, aimed at undermining Iran, is having a negative impact on stability in Iraq.