In case you were wondering how things were going in the talks with Iran, they’re going, er, not so well. Not so well at all.

The Islamic Republic has sent six warships to the Gulf of Aden in a show of strength to the international community, apparently in addition to the two it had dispatched to “protect oil tankers” traveling through the pirate-infested waters. The latter I can understand, the former not so much.

Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, quoted by the ISNA news agency, made the announcement five days after Iran said it test-fired a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles), putting Israel and U.S. bases in the area within reach…

“Iran has dispatched six … warships to international waters and the Gulf of Aden region in an historically unprecedented move by the Iranian Navy,” Sayyari told a gathering of armed forces officials, IRNA reported…

The move to dispatch the warships “is indicative of the country’s high military capability in confronting any foreign threat on the country’s shores,” Sayyari said.

The missile in the first paragraph would be capable of, according to experts, carrying a payload as far as Israel and U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a Western offer to halt any new sanctions and begin engaging in diplomacy with the major powers in exchange for a freeze in Iran’s nuclear program. Actually, he went further and ruled out any talks with the major powers on the issue. You’ll recall that Iran has stated time again that the question of its nuclear program is off the table and closed to any debate — a fact many conveniently forget.

“Our talks (with major powers) will only be in the framework of cooperation for managing global issues and nothing else. We have clearly announced this,” Ahmadinejad said.

“The nuclear issue is a finished issue for us,” he told a news conference. “From now on we will continue our path in the framework of the (U.N. nuclear watchdog) agency.”

As I said above, this isn’t a new stance for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ahmadinejad and others have said before that talks will focus on global issues and how the U.S. should rid the world of its military bases, while Iran’s nuclear program is entirely off the table for discussion. But no matter how many times it’s said, the west goes back with offers to discuss freezing the nuclear program in exchange for ending sanctions that, truth be told, have been ineffective.

Oh, and there’s another problem. According to confidential Israeli documents obtained by the Associated Press, Venezuela and Bolivia have been supplying Iran with uranium for its nuke program. The logic is that Chavez manages to undermine the United States by assisting with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. There’s no comment from either country as of this posting.

Here’s your comforting picture of the day.