"Allahu akbar!"

In a televised address, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a message of good news.

Of course, often "good news" is relative. This is one of those cases.

The crowd in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad met Ahmadinejad's words with cries of "Allahu akbar!"

"God is Great!"

Others around the world weren't so enthusiatic.

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran had successfully enriched uranium for the first time, but insisted that his country does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

"I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear technology," Ahmadinejad said in a televised address from the northeastern city of Mashhad.

The crowd that included top military commanders and clerics broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" many times during the speech. Some stood and thrust their fists in the air.

"Our nation does not get its strength from nuclear arsenals," Ahmadinejad said, adding that the West must respect Iran's right to peaceful atomic technology.

...He called on the West "not to cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians" by trying to force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment.

"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory-scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad and other Iranians may believe that Iran's enrichment of uranium is a blessing from God, but many in the international community don't see it that way.

From Aljazeera:

EU diplomat accredited to IAEA, asking not to be named: "The Security Council called on Iran to resume full and sustained suspension of all enrichment and reprocessing activities including research and development. To have 164 centrifuges up and running would not [reflect] that call. If Iran doesn't comply, the Security Council will revisit the issue. There can be no mistaking the message from the council."

David Albright, former UN arms inspector and nuclear specialist: "In terms of timing, this was entirely predictable. They seem to have reached the point of learning how to run a cascade and that's significant. The key question is whether Iran is now demonstrating more knowledge than it has reported to the IAEA in the past. But the cascade is a tricky thing to operate and you need experience and time to ensure it's not going to crash. It's like a racing car engine. You build a new one and turn it on but that doesn't mean you immediately install it in the car and speed away; you have to run this engine for quite a while to see if it's reliable and no problems crop up."

Diplomat familiar with IAEA work in Iran: "This is no particular surprise. The Iranians were clearly working on this since announcing in January they would end the suspension of enrichment work. But this marks a fork in the road. It represents a technological achievement. It probably strengthens their bargaining position [with the West] as well. The caveat to all of this is to actually authenticate what the Iranian claims are. IAEA inspectors are there now, they would have visited Natanz and Isfahan. What they find out will be in ElBaradei's report destined for the Security Council at the end of April. A key question is whether Iran made these centrifuges or did they come from Pakistan? Fact is, they have a long way to go to reach industrial-scale enrichment. They have a hole in the ground for 50,000 cascades but just 164 centrifuges are running now."

Robert Einhorn, former US non-proliferation official: "It's hard to know what we make of it because if they really believe they've reached a milestone - which is confidence that they can operate this 164 machine cascade - then that is much sooner than we anticipated. Usually when you run a test cascade like that you want to run it for quite some time to see how it's performing. It's hard to evaluate the operation of this experimental facility on the basis of a few weeks. It can't be more than a week or so that they have had gas circulating in that cascade. It's probably a kind of premature declaration of success and perhaps done for political reasons."

The Bush Administration was not shouting, "God is Great!" over the announcement that Iran continues to pursue a nuclear program.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Tuesday criticized the Iranian government after its president said Tehran had successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a potential step toward developing nuclear weapons.

"Defiant statements and actions only further isolate the regime from the rest of the world," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One while flying to Missouri.

..."This is a regime that needs to be building confidence with the international community," McClellan said. "Instead, they're moving in the wrong direction. This is a regime that has a long history of hiding its nuclear activities from the international community, and refusing to comply with its international obligations."

At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said he would not engage in "fantasyland" speculation about a possible U.S. attack on Iran, though he said the Bush administration is concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

"The United States of America is on a diplomatic track," Rumsfeld said.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he could not verify what he called the technical details of Tehran's announcement.

"This is another step by the Iranians in defiance of the international community. Once again they have chosen the pathway of defiance instead of the pathway of cooperation," he said.

I can think of very few Westerners that would consider Iran's defiance of the UN to be good news.

Seymour Hersh might be one. What "journalist" wants to be wrong? Right?

Whenever I read about shouts of "Allahu akbar," I am reminded of the 9/11 hijackers.

Remember this?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Investigators have recovered three copies of the same letter belonging to suspected terrorists aboard three of the four airplanes hijacked during the September 11 attacks against the United States, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday.

...The letter tells the hijackers to remember the battle of the "prophet against the infidels."

When the hijackers entered the planes, they were implored to say, "Oh God, open all doors for me. Oh God who answers prayers and answers those who ask you, I am asking you for your help. ... There is no God, but God."

It adds, "When the plane moves and it's on its way ... and you come to the moment of close combat, then strike like heroes who do not want to come back to Earth, say ALLAHU AKBAR (God is great), because you will instill terror in the infidel."

The letter also details to the men how they should handle their last night on Earth.

"Remind yourself that in this night you will face many challenges. But you have to face them and understand it 100 percent," it said.

The letter also tells them to "pray and wash before you leave the apartment."

"When you have washed for prayer, angels will ask God to forgive you and angels will pray for you," it says. "You should not appear confused and nervous but joyful, happy, relaxed, tranquil, because you are carrying out an action that God loves."

Really scary.