Iran has called the west's bluff on the nuclear standoff

The US cannot risk imposing stricter sanctions or military action. Fairness is now the only option

Martin Woollacott, The Guardian

As the Iranian and American presidents offer their rival versions of international reality at the United Nations this week, it is worth recalling that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the first Iranian leader to travel to New York to proclaim his country's right to make its own decisions about energy resources, to denounce imperialism, and to condemn a world order weighted in favour of a handful of powerful nations. In this same month in 1951, Dr Mohammad Mossadeq convinced the UN that British efforts to regain control of the oil industry the Iranian government had just nationalised did not deserve the world body's support. Mossadeq won over the security council, and he won over the United States, which enjoyed the spectacle of this elderly, eccentric and eloquent man challenging the British empire. American reporters affectionately nicknamed him "Old Mossy"...

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