Iran will not budge in its quest for nuclear energy and the signs are it will not have to, reports Amira Howeidy from Tehran Imam Hadi, our young Iranian chauffeur, isn't very fond of his hardline government. From behind his Raybans he volunteers his analysis of Iran's fiery president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "He represents the hardliners but he also represents the poor, unlike [former president] Hashimi Rafsanjani who represented the rich and the mullahs. People were fed up with that. Ahmadinejad gives less privileged Iranians what they want to see in a president -- themselves." Although Hadi, a 24-year-old computer science school teacher and part-time driver is angry with the hardliners "who impose everything on us and deprive us of personal freedom and choice" he retains some admiration for Ahmadinejad, however cynical his overall view of the situation in Iran. "He refused to live in [the Shah's north Tehran palace in] Saadabaad like his predecessors. He said it's for the mustakbereen (superior people)." The "less privileged" look up to him, believes Hadi, because he "talks and lives with the poor". Since his election last June, Ahmadinejad regularly has taken the entire government with him to different Iranian provinces where they spend a week meeting with locals so they might better understand their concerns. Hadi may represent a generation of young Westernised Iranians who, he says, "like America though the government doesn't want us to". Yet he has also become increasingly sympathetic to a president he previously rejected -- and certainly didn't vote for -- because Ahmadinejad reminds him that "the US cannot attack Iran". Once portrayed as a country divided between reformists and religious hardliners, Iran now appears to be rallying around the small, bearded and inconspicuously dressed president reportedly known as "Hitler" in the US administration. Whether Hadi's change of heart has been influenced by government propaganda, Ahmadinejad's defiant rhetoric or the justified belief in Iran's ability to fend off a US military attack is immaterial. What is important is that it is shared by a growing number of Iranians. "Thanks to US and Western threats the schism that once divided us has narrowed," says Fatemah Mohamedi, a computer science student who calls herself a "reformist". Mohamedi, a resident of a smart northern Tehran suburb, recalls how "proud" she felt on hearing Ahmadinejad's 11 April announcement that Iran had successfully enriched uranium. "I felt then that we were no less than any superpower," she said. "And every Iranian is prepared to endure hardship at this point for the sake of our country." Confirming these sentiments to the world the impressive military parade marking Army Day on 18 April at the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini in south Tehran displayed, among the many massive placards, one with just two words, "WE CAN", written in English. And as mounting US-led international pressure on Iran over its nuclear activity reaches worrying levels, the future of the standoff will be largely determined by what Tehran "can" actually do. As Al-Ahram Weekly was going to press on Wednesday, the US, the UK and France were set to brief the UN Security Council on a proposed resolution aimed at forcing Iran to halt nuclear activity. And that could be followed by another resolution, invoking Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, making a March Security Council statement asking Iran to suspend uranium enrichment legally binding. But Iran has already enriched uranium and refuses to halt a process which it says is part of a national plan to generate nuclear energy for its growing population. Hours before the US-UK-French proposal was submitted to the Security Council Iran announced it was on the verge of enriching uranium to the point where it can be used to fuel nuclear reactors. Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's nuclear programme, said uranium of 4.8 per cent purity had been produced. Last month Tehran declared it had enriched uranium to 3.6 per cent. Nuclear reactors used to produce electricity need uranium enriched to five per cent. The message, observers say, is clear. Threatening Tehran with sanctions will not work. Prior to Ahmadinejad's announcement that Iran had accelerated its uranium enrichment programme, Tehran said it had tested what it says is the world's fastest underwater missile, designed to elude radar and destroy enemy submarines. The largest US military base in the Persian Gulf, based in largely Shia Bahrain, is within range. "In Iran we have a saying: never corner a Persian cat," Mashaallah Shamsolvaezin, a prominent independent Iranian journalist, told the Weekly. Persian cats, he says, want to be in the centre: "If you neglect them and do not pamper them they become vicious." "The Iranians know what they're talking about when they say they have cards with which to respond to the current anti-Iran campaign," he added. Iran makes no secret of its influence in neighbouring Iraq. And National security chief and head nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani told the Weekly in a recent interview that Tehran enjoys leverage in Lebanon as well as the occupied Palestinian territories. Two weeks ago Tehran donated $100 million to the besieged Hamas government, saving it from serious financial crisis. The move coincided with Egypt's refusal to receive the Palestinian government's Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, touring the region in an attempt to raise funds after the US and EU halted financial assistance to the Palestinians. It is the first time in the 58-year-old Arab- Israeli conflict that a non-Arab state has contributed so much to the Palestinians. The donation was announced before 800 Arab, African, Asian and international delegates gathered for a Palestine solidarity conference convened in Tehran on 16 April. In the massive hall the delegates expressed unconditional support for Iran's nuclear programme, the resistance strategy of Palestinian groups against a "Zionist entity" that "doesn't have the legal right to exist"; the Iraqi resistance; the right of return for the five-million strong Palestinian Diaspora, and full support for the elected Hamas government. According to Lebanese-Iranian analyst Anis Naqqash, "it is very clear now that the files of Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran's nuclear activities are connected". And while Israel wants to appear to be maintaining a distance, he argues, it is playing an inciting role against Iran through the US. After three years of inspections, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) failed to prove that Iran's nuclear activity is, as the US claims, designed for nuclear weapons. "They want to punish Iran for unproven intentions," said Naqqash. According to Shamsolvaezin, Tehran has several options. "There is Iraq of course, and there is also Afghanistan. Iran can influence the dynamics in both countries, and not in America's favour." Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, also has the option "of switching from the US dollar to the euro which would be enough to lead to the collapse of the dollar within 10 years." And in the event of a military strike Iran can move quickly to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz -- the only sea route by which oil from Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates can be exported to the world. Oil prices surged towards $75 a barrel on Wednesday amid nagging concern that Iran could cut supplies in response to international pressure to modify its nuclear programme. "And the price will go higher if the tension continues," Larijani told the Weekly. Iran can negotiate but will not budge, cautioned Shamsolvaezin. "It is preparing for the battle of the 21st century, which will be about energy. The West wants an OPEC equivalent to control nuclear energy and Iranian activities make it difficult for them."
