Legally Righteous Mullahs

You'll never believe this one!

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Iran's president, at the center of an international nuclear showdown, told CNN Saturday his country is absolutely "determined" to pursue a nuclear energy program and will "use every resource" it has to battle the United States and European nations trying to prevent it.

"We are determined. Certainly we are determined. Why should other people have it and sell it to us?" said Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an exclusive interview -- his first since the hard-line conservative won the presidential election.

Speaking to CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Ahmadinejad lashed out against "nuclear apartheid" and suggested his nation may consider taking action to hike oil prices in order to scare off further action from the United States and parts of Europe.

Asked about remarks by some Iranian officials that Iran may provoke a rise in oil prices, he responded, "I think any intelligent, healthy, smart human being should use every resource in order to maintain his or her freedom and independence."

He added, "I doubt that the leaders of the United States and Europe are that far removed from reality." He said his nation has the "legal right" to pursue a nuclear energy program, and "I think they're smarter than denying us this legal right. It is natural, of course, they will use whatever they have in their hand, which is the U.N. Security Council, and our nation has the means to defend and obtain its own rights."

According to international legal experts, Iran's legal right to pursue nuclear energy is derived from the same documents and precedents that give them the legal right to arrest and imprison political prisoners without trials, or stone children to death for breaking fast early during Ramadan, or executing mentally teenagers who were sold into sex slavery as young children.

UPDATE: Something tells me that this plan won't inspire confidence in the international community toward Iran's illegal nuclear program.

Iran on Saturday unveiled proposals to end a standoff over its suspected nuclear weapons program, including an offer to involve foreign firms in its controversial uranium-enrichment program.

But in a much-anticipated address to the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that Tehran would reconsider its stance if it was subjected to "a language of force and threat."

France, which is trying with Britain and Germany to persuade Iran to renounce any nuclear arms ambitions, wasted little time in saying it was unconvinced by the Iranian's proposals.

"What I heard today makes me say the option of referral ... to the UN Security Council remains on the agenda," Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters.

There is nothing anyone can give Iran to make it abandon its nuclear program. They don't need the energy, they've refused concessions of light-water reactors (that can't be used to enrich uranium for weapons) in exchange for their heavy-water reactor program (which can be used to enrich uranium). This is purely political, and designed to insulate them from those who would hold them accountable to international law.

Force, in one capacity or another, is the only way to solve this issue. Maybe it's a trade blockade, maybe it's air strikes, maybe it's special forces teams, maybe it's an all out invasion. Whatever it is, it's not diplomacy, and that is becoming extremely clear.