Iran has threatened to use the oil weapon to retaliate against the U.N. sanctions against it.

[Editor's note: However, this is an empty threat because oil revenues represent 80 percent of the government revenues and cannot conceivably survive long without them.]

An Iranian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Mottaki arrived in Rome Wednesday morning to deliver a letter by Iranian President Ahmadinejad to the Vatican. The letter calls for a religious restructuring of international relations in response to the passage of an "anti-Iranian" UN Security Council resolution. Ehsan Jahandideh, deputy head of the Presidential Office Press, stated "the letter has focused on the need to find a way for putting an end to the sufferings of mankind and for promoting human relations based on common religious teachings."

The website of the Iranian volunteer student militia, Basij, at Amir Kabir University in Tehran, posted photos and information on several students who had demonstrated during a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The website also stated, "If the university does not deal with them, we will."

In a rare acknowledgement about the impact of the unofficial sanctions on Iran, Iranian oil minister Kazen Waziri Hamaneh told Shana, the oil ministry news agency, that Tehran was having trouble financing oil projects on which the economy depends. Foreign banks are not lending to Iran either because of U.S. pressure or because the banks are also "drawing their own conclusions."

Government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham here on Monday said that the Iranian nation will celebrate a nuclear victory during the Ten-Day Dawn ceremonies marking the anniversary of the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution (February 11-20).

According to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, while on a visit to Kuwait, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit said that Iran should not be permitted to acquire nuclear power for military purposes as this will introduce one more element of instability to the region.

On December 14, 2006 the Iranian news agency IRNA reported, in English, that participants of the Iranian Holocaust Denial conference, dubbed 'Holocaust: A Global Vision' had announced the establishment of a "world foundation for Holocaust studies" and unanimously appointed Presidential Advisor Mohammad–Ali Ramin as its Secretary General.

Ramin told IRNA that one of the plans of the foundation is to assign a committee to find out the truth about the Holocaust, noting that its main office will be in Tehran, and that it "will eventually be transferred to Berlin, once proper grounds are prepared."

Ali Ramin was the topic of a June 15, 2006 Special Dispatch by MEMRI based on a June 9, 2006 article in the reformist online daily Rooz. According to Rooz, Ramin was quoted as saying, "...the resolution of the Holocaust issue will end in the destruction of Israel."