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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb.
2006-05-03
Last Monday, 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.

In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations.

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.

Moments after Ahmadinejad announced "the atomic miracle", the head of the Iranian nuclear project, Ghulamreza Aghazadeh, unveiled plans for manufacturing 54,000 centrifuges, to enrich enough uranium for hundreds of nuclear warheads. "We are going into mass production," he boasted.

The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a "lame-duck", unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

Thus do not be surprised if, by the end of the 12 days still left of the United Nations' Security Council "deadline", Ahmadinejad announces a "temporary suspension" of uranium enrichment as a "confidence building measure". Also, don't be surprised if some time in June he agrees to ask the Majlis (the Islamic parliament) to consider signing the additional protocols of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Such manoeuvres would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director, Muhammad El-Baradei, and Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to congratulate Iran for its "positive gestures" and denounce talk of sanctions, let alone military action. The confidence building measures would never amount to anything, but their announcement would be enough to prevent the G8 summit, hosted by Russia in July, from moving against Iran.

While waiting Bush out, the Islamic Republic is intent on doing all it can to consolidate its gains in the region. Regime changes in Kabul and Baghdad have altered the status quo in the Middle East. While Bush is determined to create a Middle East that is democratic and pro-Western, Ahmadinejad is equally determined that the region should remain Islamic but pro-Iranian. Iran is now the strongest presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the US. It has turned Syria and Lebanon into its outer defences, which means that, for the first time since the 7th century, Iran is militarily present on the coast of the Mediterranean. In a massive political jamboree in Teheran last week, Ahmadinejad also assumed control of the "Jerusalem Cause", which includes annihilating Israel "in one storm", while launching a take-over bid for the cash-starved Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ahmadinejad has also reactivated Iran's network of Shia organisations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. From childhood, Shia boys are told to cultivate two qualities. The first is entezar, the capacity patiently to wait for the Imam to return. The second is taajil, the actions needed to hasten the return. For the Imam's return will coincide with an apocalyptic battle between the forces of evil and righteousness, with evil ultimately routed. If the infidel loses its nuclear advantage, it could be worn down in a long, low-intensity war at the end of which surrender to Islam would appear the least bad of options. And that could be a signal for the Imam to reappear.

At the same time, not to forget the task of hastening the Mahdi's second coming, Ahamdinejad will pursue his provocations. On Monday, he was as candid as ever: "To those who are angry with us, we have one thing to say: be angry until you die of anger!"

His adviser, Hassan Abassi, is rather more eloquent. "The Americans are impatient," he says, "at the first sight of a setback, they run away. We, however, know how to be patient. We have been weaving carpets for thousands of years."

Posted by:Besoeker

#5  George Noory on C2CAM radio show was saying the USA neds to do everything it can to keep Israel on a tight leash - Noory like many others made it clear that it his belief that Radical Islamists and aligned extremists are out to destroy US-West utterly and completely, but that Israel per se needs to be restrained right now from taking any action against Iran and MadMoud lest Israel [andor America] get the blame for nuke explosions going off in the ME. I believe Noory quoted Shimon Peres? as warning that any enemy(s) of Israel had better watch out becuz Israel is "exceptionally strong".
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-05-04 00:05  

#4  [Ernst Stavro Blofeld] Kill Bond Ahmadinejad, now! [/ESB]
Posted by: Zenster   2006-05-03 21:54  

#3  See this post from Aug 11, 2004: What would you do?.

Short summary: Israel has effectively no choice but to annihilate the Muslim world if Iran gets the bomb. Here's a rather large quote;


Most importantly, if it became apparent that any Arab or Muslim nation were about to obtain a nuclear capability, and no other nation were going to stop that from happening, I would annihilate that capability no matter the cost, because the alternative would be the annihilation of Israel.

In the case of Iran, that poses some problems: because the Iranian capability is spread among a large number of sites, and is deeply buried, so it would be difficult to destroy or hinder. The upshot of this is that I would have to use nuclear weapons for attacks on at least several, though not all, Iranian targets.

But then I have another problem: Israel would be so roundly condemned for this use of nuclear weapons (witness the condemnation of the United States over Iraq when the US was almost immaculate in warfighting), and given that this is only the normal reaction to Israel existing, it is likely that a large number of nations would move towards sanctions against Israel. In addition to the economic damage, it would be likely that supplies of fuel and weapons from outside would almost completely dry up, and that would mean that in a relatively small amount of time - 18 months at most - Israel would be a shambles. It's also likely that Egypt and Jordan would be compelled to renounce their peace treaties, and it's not inconceivable that the Arab nations would launch an all-out war. If they did this 18 months after the strike, Israel might not be strong enough to withstand the assault.

Given these considerations, I would be strongly tempted to remove my enemies once and for all, so that they couldn't strike in my moment of weakness. The way to do that, of course, is to eliminate their armies, their political structures, and critical infrastructure that they could use to rebuild. This would have to be thorough enough to keep those enemies incapacitated for at least 10 years, because it could take that long to recover Israel's reputation and (more critically) economy and supply situation. So, if I were fairly convinced that Israel was in grave danger of attack in the aftermath of taking out Iran's nuclear capability, I would most likely hit at all of the Arab/Muslim world's military facilities and large units, industrial base, critical infrastructure (including any large cities), and so forth. Some of these attacks would be conventional, but most would be nuclear. And as part of that, I would have to strike Pakistan and eliminate their military and nuclear capability as well, because they are the only Muslim state with a declared nuclear capability, and even if they didn't want to strike directly, there's no guarantee that the ISI wouldn't give weapons to terrorists for revenge attacks.


Not good, not good at all - the Iranians are playing an extraordinarily dangerous game, and their leader appears to be driven by a religious zeal that the MSM usually applies to Bush.
Posted by: Tony (UK)   2006-05-03 17:46  

#2  I weep for Israel because, at the end, they will have to be the one to frop the big one on those lunatics!
Posted by: THM   2006-05-03 17:31  

#1  "The worst woes will come to those, who heap their grief by blood of sheep."
Posted by: Uliper Unaick6809   2006-05-03 16:45  

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