Today, May 6th, six major world powers including the US will again offer Iran incentives, - a repackaged version of the same ones offered in 2006 to which they never responded - as encouragement for Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program.
Iran has already indicated it will reject the latest attempt at appeasement. According to a Breitbart report, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Sunday Iran will continue its nuclear program despite Western efforts adding, "No threat can hinder the Iranian nation from its path."
But even should Iran ultimately agree, we would be foolish to believe a nuclear bullet has been dodged. It is imperative that in analyzing Iran’s true intentions, we give less weight to our own logic of reason - i.e., believing a reasonable man will choose peaceful co-existence over the alternative - and more to the absence of such logic in Tehran. It is imperative we understand the psyche of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - a man who may, before his term in office expires, have his hands on a nuclear weapon.
For those who have closely followed Ahmadinejad’s rants and raves since he became president in 2005, he is a troubling psychological case study. To understand his psyche, we are left to study his words, his actions and the beliefs to which he personally adheres. In doing so, we need remember Bush administration officials and presidential contender Barack Obama, astonishingly, believe logic can prevail in discussions with Ahmadinejad.
- As do many Shi’ite Muslims, Ahmadinejad adheres to the core belief a mystical “Hidden” 12th Imam, who disappeared more than a millenium ago, is destined to return to restore Islam to greatness. As do many Shi’ites, Ahmadinejad believes this 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, will only return in the wake of world chaos. But unlike most Shi’ites who believe such chaos must evolve naturally, Ahmadinejad is a member of a small sect believing man can be a catalyst in causing the necessary chaos. Ahmadinejad’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons must, therefore, be weighed against his belief he can expedite the chaos to trigger al-Mahdi’s return.
- Ahmadinejad believes his destiny is, literally, to pave the way for the 12th Imam’s return. As mayor of Tehran before becoming president, he ordered streets widened to be able to accommodate the celebratory parade marking al-Mahdi’s future return.
- Ahmadinejad’s belief in his special role in the 12th Imam’s return prompted him to share a “vision” he had during his 2006 appearance before the UN. Allegedly, he (and no one else) saw himself engulfed in a “halo” as he spoke. Additionally, in concluding his remarks to this world body, he prayed and forewarned of al-Mahdi’s imminent return.
- As Ahmadinejad spoke at the UN, construction in Iran - he had funded - was underway to expand a small mosque outside the holy city of Qom where, in his apocalyptic vision, al-Mahdi is to make his re-appearance, marking the end of the world. In a nearby well, believers deposit messages for al-Mahdi. Here, Ahmadinejad has left his master plan for Planet Earth’s future.
- One can only assume Ahmadinejad’s master plan paints a dark future for Israel. In an October 20, 2006 speech to mark the Iranian holiday of Quds, he urged Muslims around the world to prepare for a “great war” to destroy Israel - a warning made only a year after his declaration “Israel should be wiped off the map.”
- During the Cold war, the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction - retaliation in kind by one nation in response to the initiator of a nuclear first strike against it - was an adequate deterrent to prevent nuclear war. Ahmadinejad, however, is not similarly deterred by nuclear retaliation - in fact, he welcomes it. As one who believes this life is but a transition to an afterlife where believers will be rewarded with 72 virgins (clearly denying such benefits to female Muslims), nuclear retaliation is his vehicle for getting there sooner. Thus, US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s recent threat to destroy Iran should it attack Israel is only inspiration to Ahmadinejad.
- In 2006, Ahmadinejad sent two, somewhat rambling letters to President Bush and the American people, the purposes of which - to Western readers - were unclear. However, a close reading by those familiar with Islamic tradition and Ahmadinejad’s mindset suggest a sinister motive - i.e., prior to war, offering an enemy a chance to embrace Islam. If rejected, Ahmadinejad is free to destroy the enemy.
- While Ahmadinejad has long denied the Holocaust, calling it a “myth,” he recently declared so too was 9/11. Neither event, he maintains, ever occurred. (How could anyone, believing the deaths of so many a myth, be expected to possess sufficient rationality to understand the devastating consequences of detonating a nuclear device?)
- Ahmadinejad has expressed the belief on more than one occasion al-Mahdi’s return will occur by 2008. This prediction was made in 2006, the same year Ahmadinejad acquired 18 North Korean BM-25 long range, land-based missiles - missiles having a single-purpose - nuclear - payload.
- Ahmadinejad is fully committed to fulfill the Iranian constitution’s extraterritorial mandate - the only nation in the world to have one - demanding export of fundamentalist Islam around the globe and submission of world populations to it. Rejection by any nation’s population to embrace Islam gives rise to Ahmadinejad’s duty to seek its destruction.
- In his quest to pave the road for al-Mahdi’s return, Ahmadinejad believes Allah blesses him to use whatever means necessary to achieve this end. This includes his duty to lie to and deceive non-believers - as Iran has done for almost two decades in hiding its nuclear program from the world - and as it will continue to do should it agree to the most recent incentives offered.
In 1978, Peoples Temple cult-founder Jim Jones shocked the world by leading his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their isolated community in Guyana, South America. Over 900 people died by poisoning, taken either voluntarily or under duress, in the largest mass suicide in history. Ahmadinejad is Iran’s Jim Jones on a global scale. He will lead his people and the world community into chaos in fulfillment of his mission.
Decades later, survivors will ask how we could have been lulled into believing otherwise. The signs were obvious. Just as reasonable men failed to stop Nazism, reasonable men again failed to stop Islamic extremism. Those survivors will not look kindly upon us. For they will recognize preventing a madman from acting out on his very obvious insanity was, in itself, insane.
