The Iranian crisis....

I agree with this article - we are on a collision course with Iran. Do we have the stomach to stand up for western values?

Iran was on a collision course with the West yesterday as its president defied a diplomatic onslaught led by Washington and London to withdraw his calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supported by more than a million of his countrymen attending annual anti-Israel protest rallies in all major cities across Iran, said he stood by his remarks.

The president marched alongside a mob of noisy students in Teheran waving placards carrying the exact words he used at an anti-Zionism rally earlier this week, and mocked Israel's strongest supporter, the United States.

"They become upset when they hear any voice of truth-seeking, " he said. "They think they are the absolute rulers of the world."

By returning so bluntly to the old anti-Israel rhetoric common during Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979, the president has radically changed Iran's relations with the West.

After a decade when most observers believed that the Islamic Republic had become more modern, Mr Ahmadinejad has taken a more hardline position.

With Iran continuing work on its nuclear programme, it is a change of policy with potentially enormous implications.

Next month's deadline for Iran to allow international scrutiny of its nuclear programme will now be the focus of increased diplomatic attention.

So far Iran's belligerence appears to have wrong-footed the West, with no obvious international support for Tony Blair's veiled warning that force could be used against Iran.

While European and western nations have condemned the Iranian president's remarks, the Arab and Muslim world has been largely silent.

Only Turkey, a Muslim but secular state, has called for Mr Ahmadinejad to withdraw his comments.