Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a freaky scary dude. He’s a true religious zealot who’s theology is likely to lead to world war if he gets his way.
I mean, liberals back in the 1980s often tried to portray Ronald Reagan–a mild Presbyterian–as if he were an apocalyptic visionary, but Ahmadinejad is the real deal!
He’s said and done things that suggest that he is a divine messenger who is preparing the way for the return of the Hidden Imam–Shi’ite Islam’s semi-Messianic child figure, who is believed to have been in hiding for the last thousand years but who will return in connection with an apocalyptic conflict.
The former executive editor of Iran’s largest daily newspaper (who now lives in Europe) has an interesting article spelling out Ahmadinejad’s religious vision and how it plays into the current Iranian nuclear situation.
EXCERPTS:
Last Monday [now the Monday before last], just before he announced that Iran had gatecrashed "the nuclear club", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disappeared for several hours. He was having a khalvat (tête-à-tête) with the Hidden Imam, the 12th and last of the imams of Shiism who went into "grand occultation" in 941.
According to Shia lore, the Imam is a messianic figure who, although in hiding, remains the true Sovereign of the World. In every generation, the Imam chooses 36 men, (and, for obvious reasons, no women) naming them the owtad or "nails", whose presence, hammered into mankind’s existence, prevents the universe from "falling off". Although the "nails" are not known to common mortals, it is, at times, possible to identify one thanks to his deeds. It is on that basis that some of Ahmad-inejad’s more passionate admirers insist that he is a "nail", a claim he has not discouraged. For example, he has claimed that last September, as he addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York, the "Hidden Imam drenched the place in a sweet light".
Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilisations" in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.
According to this analysis, spelled out in commentaries by Ahmadinejad’s strategic guru, Hassan Abassi, known as the "Dr Kissinger of Islam", President George W Bush is an aberration, an exception to a rule under which all American presidents since Truman, when faced with serious setbacks abroad, have "run away". Iran’s current strategy, therefore, is to wait Bush out. And that, by "divine coincidence", corresponds to the time Iran needs to develop its nuclear arsenal, thus matching the only advantage that the infidel enjoys.
The author goes on to predict that Iran will feign just enough compliance with the U.N. to stave off a military attack for the next two years, so they can run out Bush’s term in office. Then, with a new, weaker-willed president in office, it’ll be full speed ahead.
We’ll have to see whether they pursue that strategy or whether they really are hell-bent-for-leather crazy on their nuclear program.
What the author doesn’t go into is something that we’ve brought up before here on the blog: Bush knows (or should know) that no matter what happens in Afghanistan and Iraq, if he leaves office without stopping Iran from getting the Bomb then his presidency will be viewed as a dismal failure. It doesn’t matter whether they get the Bomb after he leaves office or not. He will be viewed as someone who (like Clinton) allowed a horrible external threat to fester and grow due to his indecisive action. He’ll even be viewed as someone who hamstrung himself with a foolish venture into Iraq when the real threat was Iran.
It doesn’t matter whether that’s fair or not, that’s how it’ll be perceived.
So the question is: What will Bush do if the Iranian government tries a play-for-time strategy?
Will he drive the hammer into the nail?
Only time will tell. In the meanwhile,
