Iran Won’t Yield to Threats or Pressure, Top Leader Says

Iran’s supreme leader vowed Thursday to “resist any pressure and threat” after an international panel stuck with its decision to put the issue of his nation’s nuclear program before the U.N. Security Council.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said pressure over the nuclear issue was the latest chapter in the United States’ 27-year history of hostility toward the Islamic Republic.

In Washington, meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a congressional hearing that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, a capacity that Iran says it does not seek. She said Iran already was a risk to Israel and other countries in the Middle East.

“If you can take that and multiply it by several hundred, you can imagine Iran with a nuclear weapon and the threat they would then pose to that region,” Rice said. “We may face no greater challenge from a single country.”

Khamenei’s pledge to persevere in the pursuit of what Iran insists is strictly a civilian nuclear energy program seemed to mark a hardening of position after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors did not back away Wednesday from submitting a Feb. 27 report on Iran to the Security Council for possible action.

So far, however, Iranian officials’ objections have been rhetorical and have not been accompanied by any concrete actions, such as severing cooperation with the IAEA or cutting off talks with Russia on a possible compromise.

Khamenei is the supreme religious authority and spiritual guide of Iran and is supposed to watch over all important decisions by the government.

In his remarks to the country’s Assembly of Experts, he put the weight of his religious authority behind Iran’s nuclear program, which some Western governments fear could lead to a covert effort to build atomic weapons.

He accused the United States of waging psychological war against Iran because, he said, Tehran’s model of Islamic government is gaining popularity.

“Today in any election held in Islamic states, such as that in Iraq and Egypt, people will vote for Islamic groups,” Khamenei said.

“Such facts make it almost impossible for [Iran’s enemies] to tolerate the Islamic system.”

Reiterating the official position here that uranium enrichment is permissible under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Khamenei called the nuclear issue “an excuse.” Even if Iran retreated from its nuclear ambitions, the leader said, the U.S. would find another reason to attack the regime because American officials fear Iran’s growing influence in the region.

Western officials have acknowledged that countries have a right to develop nuclear energy, including conducting scientific research and enriching uranium to fuel civilian power plants. However, they say that right is predicated on certification by the IAEA that there is no military intention.

In the case of Iran, the IAEA has not been satisfied that the Persian Gulf nation has no military aims and therefore demands a resumption of a moratorium by Tehran on enrichment activities while investigations continue.

At the end of a three-day meeting in Vienna on Wednesday, the IAEA governors took no action to retract a decision last month to report Iran to the Security Council. The council will begin to discuss possible actions against Iran as early as next week.

Tehran has said repeatedly that it is close to agreeing to a compromise offer to allow enrichment on an industrial scale to take place in Russia under safeguarded conditions. However, the Iranians have insisted that they will continue research programs and the small-scale uranium enrichment that they began last month.

In addition to Khamenei’s comments, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday in western Iran that the country would prevail in its confrontation with Western nations, according to local media reports. And Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, the speaker of parliament, accused the West of a double standard when it comes to Iran.

Haddad-Adel cited the U.S. silence on the large nuclear arsenal that Israel is believed to possess and also President Bush’s decision last week to give direct help to India’s civilian nuclear program. Israel and India have developed nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community and, unlike Iran, both have refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which seeks to stop the spread of atomic arms.

“The United States backs Israel, which has hundreds of nuclear warheads and is clearly a threat to the world, but opposes Iran’s peaceful nuclear research,” Haddad-Adel said.

In spite of the statements, the Iranian representative to the IAEA said his government would continue to allow agency inspectors into his nation’s Natanz nuclear facility to see the pilot enrichment program.

“Our nuclear cooperation will continue within the framework of IAEA safeguards agreements,” said the envoy, Ali Asghar Soltanieh.