In recent days, Iran's airwaves have been buzzing with two new tunes apparently designed to rally public support for the clerical regime's increasingly tense stand-off with the West over its nuclear ambitions.

The first song is entitled "Oriental Sun, Nuclear Science", and sung to a backdrop of military-style marching music by Ali Tafreshi. The second similarly catchy tune is "Nuclear Know-How" by Reza Shirazi.

Both extol the wonders of a "great and powerful Iran" which has destroyed "the arrogance of the oppressors" and "defends its independence by using science".

Despite the heavyweight nationalist lyricism, Iran insists its nuclear programme it strictly peaceful. But the West in unconvinced, and the European Union and United States want Iran to abandon its works on the potentially dual use nuclear fuel cycle and are threatening UN Security Council action.

The songs, produced by Iran's state television and radio apparatus, have therefore been getting good airplay -- and are also accompanying TV clips of atomic facilities used to praise the "young engineers who have succeeded, without the help of foreigners, to develop the Iranian nuclear programme".

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