Iran, amid the standoff with the West has issued a bank note emblazoned with a nuclear symbol. The move is seen as an assertion of the national will in the face of international sanctions over its insistence on enriching uranium. This is one of the most contemptible acts yet!

The new note for 50,000 rials (about $5.40) also reflected rising inflation, a fact that has brought criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies. It is worth more than twice the previously highest denomination note for 20,000 rials.

The note is printed in orange, green and blue and shows a nuclear symbol — electrons flying around a nucleus — on a map of Iran. A brief text next to the symbol gives a quote from Islam’s Prophet Muhammad: “Men from the land of Persia will attain scientific knowledge even if it is as far as the Pleiades.” The Pleiades is a cluster of stars.

In conformity with the law, the note also bears a portrait of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

State television on Monday said the Central Bank had issued six million of the new notes, and will introduce another six million within the next two weeks.

Iran of course denies that it is trying to build nuclear bombs, claiming that its program is limited to generating electricity.

The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran in December after it ignored a resolution demanding that it halt enrichment. Five permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, including Germany, are now considering further sanctions against Iran.

What good are sanctions from the useless nations? Iran just as Iraq under the dictates of Saddam Hussein who blatantly ignored sanctions posed by the U.N. - will completely ignore the demands of the Security Council.

These sanctions mean little and are rendered useless in light of these new developments. They just “don’t get it!”

Crossposted from The HILL Chronicles