Is Iran really a 'nuclear state'?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims his country could build an A-bomb, but doesn't want to. Is he bluffing?

Is Iran really a 'nuclear state'?
(Image credit: (Reuters/Corbis/Caren Firouz))

Heating up a stand-off with the West, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted Thursday that his country had become a "nuclear state," with the capacity to enrich uranium pure enough to make a nuclear bomb if it wanted. The White House, which is expanding sanctions against Tehran, said Ahmadinejad's claims were "based on politics, not physics," because Tehran's defiance is popular at home. Is Iran really a "nuclear state," or is Ahmadinejad making empty threats? (Watch an AP report about Iran becoming a "nuclear state")

Ahmadinejad is bluffing: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "nuclear state" claim "is almost certainly bravado," says Graham Usher in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly. But it suggests that both Tehran and the Obama administration have shifted from "engagement to confrontation." That might make it easier to get foreign powers to unite behind sanctions that will really bring Tehran to its knees.

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