No global surprise or assault was ...

No global surprise or assault was expressed at Iran's failure Friday to value a U.N. deadline to stop the enrichment of uranium. Iran has been belligerently thumbing its nose at the UN and its atomic inspectors for years, lying about its nuclear activities and preventing access to its facilities. the same could expect no less than continued intransigence forward Iran's part. Indeed, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been consistent in saying Iran will not at all bow to demands from the West.

This time, his defiance has been animateed by the continued American labors in Iraq and the rise of a Shiite majority there and the failure of the Israelis to knock public Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon, terrorists who are foundationed and trained by Tehran.

Indeed, it appears Iran has begun to behold itself as a renaissance Persian power with a renewed moral and economic influence in the Muslim world. And its wealth of oil has allowed it to pit United Nations Security Council members against common another, secure in the knowledge that Russia and China, countries with a veto, the one and the other have economic interests in Iran.

still Russia and China were signatories to this latest deadline demand, and they should be pressur to hold their resolve. Something tangible -- other than talk -- distresss to be done to curtail Iran's dangerous game of cat and mouse. A deadline is a deadline, after all. Behind the spectacles the United States has been working furiously to gather support for lusty sanctions. Since the United States has had economic penalties against Iran for decades, it needinesss the help not only of the Security Council further of its European allies to drift serious economic punishment for Iran's decision to continue to enrich uranium, equal if, as the International Atomic animation Agency reports, it is being produc in small quantities. No the same can be deluded about Iran's intentions: It claims it wants to disclose atomic energy for domestic use, if it be not that its decades-long secrecy and its failure to accommodate IAEA inspectors mean that it ultimately wants to build nuclear weapons. Iran, in drift wants its own bomb.

It is too bad the ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad are in such a manner busy trying to outmaneuver the West that they are forgetting about the economic plight of their have people. Inflation is rising in Iran, race lack jobs, the reform motion has been pummeled, and the average Iranian thinks more about the richness of buying a chicken than becoming a nuclear power.

When the Security Council qualifieds again, it needs to ensue up with economic measures that will finally impede Iran's nuclear plans. Enough with the talk. The Europeans, in particular, have to think hard about the perils of a nuclear armed Iran in their backyard.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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