Bad & bizarre news from Iran

First the bizarre

Iran’s vice president used the lectern of an international antidrug conference here Tuesday to deliver a baldly anti-Semitic speech, blaming Judaism’s holiest book, the Talmud, for teaching how to suck blood from people and for causing the spread of illegal drugs around the world.....

Mr. Rahimi, second in line to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the Talmud teaches to “destroy everyone who opposes the Jews.”

The “Zionists” are in firm control of the illegal drug trade, he said, asking foreign dignitaries to research his claims. “Zionists” is Iran’s ideological term for Jews who support the state of Israel. 

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict,” Mr. Rahmini said. “They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade.”.... 

Mr. Rahimi, who spoke after Mr. De Leo [UN Office on Drugs and Crimes representative in Iran], told stories of gynecologists killing black babies on the orders of the Zionists and claimed that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was started by the Jews, adding that mysteriously no Jews died in that uprising. 

He said the Talmud teaches the Jews to think they are a superior race. “They think God has created the world so that all other nations can serve them,” he said. 

Halfway through the speech, Mr. Rahimi said there was a difference between Jews who “honestly follow the prophet Moses” and the Zionists who are “the main elements of the international drugs trade.”

And now the bad:

With the failure of negotiations between Iran and six world powers last week, the Islamic regime now says it has the right, under international law, to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic should an embargo on Iran’s oil go into effect July 1. 

The third round of talks between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany ended in Moscow without any agreement on Iran’s illicit nuclear program. Iran continues to insist that the only way out of the impasse would be for the West to accept its nuclear program. 

Hossein Shariatmadari, the chief editor of the Iranian Keyhan newspaper, which is directly under the supervision of the supreme leader, warned in a commentary on Saturday that not only will Iran not back down on what it sees as its right to become a nuclear power but that it has the ability to stop oil tanker passage through the strait should new sanctions take effect.... 

“It is noteworthy that should the oil embargo on Iran by the European Union take effect on July 1st, then the Islamic Iran has the right to retaliation as the waters of the Strait of Hormuz are located within Iranian territory,” Shariatmadari said. “According to the Geneva 1958 Convention and the Jamaica 1982 Convention, which touches on the legality of the international waterways, Iran can close down the Strait of Hormuz to all oil tankers and even other commercial vessels if it is barred from selling oil.” The conventions allow passage of all vessels so long as the security of any country is not threatened. With these new sanctions, Iran would consider its security threatened.