In an anti-Semitic slur that would not have looked out of place in Germany in 1935, Iran has launched an official complaint over the logo for the London Olympics in 2012 saying it is racist because it spells the word “Zion”.

Mohammad Aliabadi (read Joseph Goebbels), who is head of the Iranian National Olympic Committee, was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying: “The use of the word Zion by the designer of Olympics logo ….in the emblem of the Olympic Games 2012 is a very revolting act.”

The logo says nothing of the sort, of course, but in the deranged minds of Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists the image of the dreaded Jew is everywhere that power and the symbols thereof reside. Of course, for the BBC, which is soft on anti-Semitism (and Holocaust denial) when it emanates from the Muslim world, this was all quite amusing.

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In a remarkable story in the Jerusalem Post today, a top German computer expert says that a hyper-advanced computer virus, widely assumed to have been developed by Israel, has set back Iran’s nuclear programme by two years. Speaking in reference to the Stuxnet virus, German cyber security expert Ralf Langer said: “This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success.”

The Stuxnet virus is said to be the first of its kind in that it can get inside computer systems, reprogramme them and then remain undetected before irreparable damage to both the computer and equipment connected to it has been done. According to the Post, Langer said Iran would simply have to throw away any computer system affected by what he was quoted as describing as the most “advanced and aggressive malware in history.”

When news broke last month that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it believed Iran had had to suspend its nuclear programme due to computer problems there were fears that this may be nothing more than UN-led complacency about the Islamic republic’s intentions to go nuclear. Since then, however, numerous experts have suggested that cyber warfare techniques employed by Israel, possibly in conjunction with the United States, may well have done serious and lasting harm.

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US led efforts to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons descended into chaos today as it emerged that Iran had rejected proposals to ship enriched uranium out of the country to prevent Tehran from processing it to weapon’s grade and the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) indicated a merely partial reversal of its infamous 2007 “estimate” that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

Iran’s rejection of the uranium plan was conveyed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna while developments at the NIC emerged from an exclusive report by the Reuters news agency which quoted unnamed officials as saying they now believed that Iran was researching a nuclear weapons programme but not necessarily developing one:

“Basically, we’re talking about research (resuming) — not about the Iranians barrelling full steam ahead on a bomb program,” a U.S. official was quoted by Reuters as saying on condition of anonymity.

Taking these two developments together, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Western policy on Iran’s nuclear programme has all but fallen apart.

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The Times of London claims a world exclusive today with a report saying the paper has obtained secret documentation which proves that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb.

According to the Times: “The notes, from Iran’s most sensitive military nuclear project, describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. Foreign intelligence agencies date them to early 2007, four years after Iran was thought to have suspended its weapons programme.”

And, the paper continues: “The technical document describes the use of a neutron source, uranium deuteride, which independent experts confirm has no possible civilian or military use other than in a nuclear weapon. Uranium deuteride is the material used in Pakistan’s bomb, from where Iran obtained its blueprint.”

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Anyone who has followed developments in Russia over the last few years had to be sceptical that the Obama administration’s decision to scrap missile defence facilities in central and eastern Europe would really yield the hoped for response from Moscow in securing meaningful sanctions against Iran.

Appeasement would never work, we all said. Isn’t it blindingly obvious that the people who run modern Russia see themselves as locked in a zero sum, geo-political game with America and the wider West?
Didn’t Obama understand that Moscow sees the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran as negative for the United States but neutral or positive for Russia?

Still, there was always that nagging sensation of doubt. Surely, given the stakes, Obama would not humiliate staunch American allies like the Czechs and the Poles without a cast iron commitment from Russia to shift its position on Iran. Surely the Russians had been persuaded that they must now come into line allowing the prospect of serious sanctions to at least be put on the table. Surely the scrapping of missile defence was part of a grand bargain even if, following diplomatic protocol, the Americans would never say so publicly. Surely Obama knew what he was doing.

Yesterday, that debate appeared to come to an end with the following words from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a meeting in Moscow with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “We are convinced,” he said, “that threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the present situation are counter-productive.”

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