International Discord with Iran Becomes More Complex

Retreating further into isolation, the Iranian Regime has virtually blockaded its nation's communications systems, while the international mistrust of Iran's nuclear ambitions mounts.

"[W]e've seen reports that, you know, the phone system has been taken down, text messaging has been taken down, satellite television has been jammed, the Internet has been, you know, throttled," State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters at a briefing.

"[I]t is clear that Iran -- the Iranian government fears its own people," he said.

Adding to the crisis, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thumbed his nose Thursday at international attempts to control the way Iran enriches its uranium. He told a rally marking the 1979 Iranian Revolution in Tehran that Iran has reached a uranium enrichment purification level never before seen and that Iran won't be bullied, "[O]ur mistrust is not baseless and it's our right not to trust them."

The White House says it doesn't trust Iran either, "I think Iran has made a series of statements that are far more political than they are-- They're based on politics, not on physics, OK?"

The global community's concern has been that if Iran is able to enrich uranium at increasingly high levels of purification, it may eventually be able to attain a nuclear weapon. But Gibbs doesn't see Iran at that point yet, "Quite frankly, what -- what Ahmadinejad says -- he says many things and many of them turn out to be untrue," he told White House reporters Thursday.

"We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching."

The Obama administration has been holding the diplomatic door open for Iran, but Iran has refused to walk through it. There have been intermittent signs of cooperation along the way, but the government has yet to accept international proposals.

Just yesterday, the US Treasury Department announced targeted sanctions which would freeze the assets of some of the Iranian regime's leaders. However, the world community has yet to formulate its own response.

The United Nations Security Council is seeking a consensus, which it is growing closer to achieving with the recent backing of Russia. The pressure now falls on China for its vote.

If the UN fails to come to terms, the European Union stands ready to pick up the slack. Finland's Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said "If [the UN] is not successful, then we will do it through the European Union ... I would estimate, in a matter of days or weeks."