Last Thursday, Iranian President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran has the capability to produce weapons-grade uranium and threatened yesterday that "If anyone does anything against Iran, then our response won't be the same as in the past. No, we will definitely react and make them regretful."

Russia has joined France and the U.S. in favoring sanctions, although China is resolutely against them. The threat doesn't appear to deter Iran, according to a report from United Press International. "Even if U.S. President Barack Obama dares to repeat threats of tougher sanction against us as much as 10 times, we will still be determined to pursue our enrichment program, but with a much faster pace," Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Thursday.

This provides little comfort for Americans in light of the U.S. missile defense test that failed just two weeks ago. The Pentagon explained that the exercise was intended to simulate a missile threat from Iran or North Korea, but the sea-based X-band radar system failed.

Iran may have its own reasons for concern, however. As reported in the Washington Post, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has enough power to potentially overthrow the Iranian government. "We see that the government of Iran, the Supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," said Clinton. Amir Taheri of the Wall Street Journal, noted that the IRGC now has more power than Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.