Adherents of Shia Islam believe that leadership of the Muslim religion was transferred from Muhammad to his son-in-law and then down through a series of descendants. Shiites refer to each of these successors as an “imam”—Arabic for “leader.”

The 12th of these imams was born in 868 or 869. A few years later, in 874, he disappeared without a trace, bringing an end to Muhammad’s lineage. The Shiites believe that this boy, the 12th imam, survived, “that he merely withdrew from public view when he was five and that he will sooner or later emerge . . . to liberate the world from evil” (Matthias Kuntzel, “A Child of the Revolution Takes Over: Ahmadinejad’s Demons,” The New Republic, April 24).

Some refer to him as the Mahdi, meaning “divinely guided one.” In Shiite ideology—dominant in Iran and Iraq —”legitimate Islamic rule can only be established following the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam” (ibid.). As Christians wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ to establish the Kingdom of God over the earth, Shiite Muslims await the Mahdi’s return to make Islam the dominant—and eventually only— religion throughout the world.

Shiite beliefs shape Iran

Because most people in the West do not take religion seriously, it’s almost impossible for Westerners to understand the power of religion in the Middle East. In Islamic countries, politics and religion are inseparable.

The Shiites have been waiting patiently for the 12th imam for more than a thousand years, but that patience has run out, at least in Iran. In 1979 the overthrow of the pro-Western shah of Iran led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a theocratic state where the clerics held supreme power under the Ayatollah Khomeini.

“Khomeini . . . had no intention of waiting. He vested the myth with an entirely new sense: The Twelfth Imam will only emerge when the believers have vanquished evil. To speed up the Mahdi’s return, Muslims had to shake off their torpor and fight” (ibid.).

Influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood of the 1930s, Khomeini “agreed with the Brothers’ conception of what had to be considered ‘evil’: namely, all the achievements of modernity that replaced divine providence with individual self-determination, blind faith with doubt, and the stern morality of sharia [law] with sensual pleasures” (ibid.).

Khomeini believed that all that is bad in the world comes from the West, especially America, which he designated “the Great Satan.”

“Twelvers,” as this largest group of Shiite Muslims are sometimes called, believe Islam must triumph over the West before the 12th imam will appear. They feel it their duty to bring chaos to the world. Out of this chaos will come a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West that will then lead directly to the return of the 12th imam.

Thus the Tehran regime is clearly not about to enter into any agreement of substance with the West. Any treaty is only going to be used by the Iranian leadership to play for time, as President Ahmadinejad has openly boasted of doing in his drawn-out negotiations with the European Union.

As the New Republic writer Matthias Kuntzel asks, “Why should an Iranian president engage in pragmatic politics when his assumption is that, in three or four years, the savior will appear?” (ibid.).

Iranian threats to eliminate Israel

One of President Ahmadinejad’s stated goals is the total destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. Yet this isn’t new in Iranian thinking.

“In December 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that ‘the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything.’ On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it ‘will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.’

“Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable—only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam” (ibid.).

Israel is a small country that could be essentially wiped out with just one nuclear missile, whereas the Islamic world is spread across many countries on three continents. Even if Israel retaliated with its entire nuclear arsenal, it would merely harm the Islamic community of nations, not destroy them. This was the thinking of Iran’s former “moderate” president.

The new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is even more radical. At a November 2005 theology conference he emphasized that “the most important task of our Revolution is to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam” (ibid.).

An ancient failed attempt to exterminate the Jews

This is not the first time that a powerful leader has tried to exterminate the Jews. Seventy years ago Adolf Hitler succeeded in exterminating 6 million Jews. If Iran succeeds in a nuclear strike against Israel, once again the world could see 6 million Jews wiped out!

This is not even the first time an Iranian leader has tried to wipe out the Jews. Almost 2,500 years ago many Jews lived in the ancient Persian Empire, whose modern successor state was renamed Iran after World War II. In the Old Testament book of Esther we read an account of an attempt to totally annihilate the Jews.

The story takes place in 484 B.C. during the reign of the Persian king Xerxes I, who was king from 486-465 B.C. The biblical name for Xerxes was Ahaseurus.

One of his predecessors, Cyrus the Great, had defeated Babylon, where the Jews had been taken as captives, in 539 B.C. Soon afterward he gave the Jews permission to return to Judah, which was within his empire. Many returned, but many did not. (In fact, as a result of the Babylonian captivity around 2,600 years ago, some Jews still live in Iran though many have left under the present fundamentalist Islamic regime.)

When Xerxes’ wife, Queen Vashti, refused to honor him, he divorced her and later chose Esther, a Jewess, as her successor. Esther had been brought up by her uncle, Mordecai. According to the biblical account, the king appointed a man named Haman to the second-highest position in the land, what we today would call prime minister.

Esther 3:2 states that “all the king’s servants who were within the king’s gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai would not bow down or pay homage.” Haman realized that it wasn’t just Mordecai who was a problem, but that all the Jews would do as he did (verse 6). So he devised a plot to wipe them out.

After things started to unravel, Haman’s family warned him not to tackle the Jews: “When Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him, ‘If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him but will surely fall before him’” (Esther 6:13).

They might have been aware of God’s promise to Abraham regarding him and his descendants: “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you” (Genesis 12:3). Through Mordecai and Queen Esther, God delivered the Jewish people from genocide.

Haman failed to exterminate the Jews. Hitler, though he did kill vast numbers, also failed in his genocidal efforts. Similarly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s stated goal of wiping out the Jews of Israel will also fail. God will ultimately deliver the Jewish people from this as He has delivered them many times before.

In Matthew 24:22 we read the words of Jesus Christ, the real Messiah who is soon to return to this world: “And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.”

Jesus Christ will intervene in world affairs to stop humanity from destroying itself in the kind of nuclear conflict that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is threatening. Not only is the Iranian president intent on destroying Israel, but he also wants to rid the world of America and Britain, the leading infidel countries, so Islam can triumph over all nations.

Islam on the rise, the West in decline

Amir Taheri, a former executive editor of Kayhan, Iran’s largest daily newspaper, who now lives in Europe, wrote in Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper April 16: “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 aging populations.”

He notes that young Shiite boys are taught to develop 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.”

Mr. Taheri goes on to explain that, in President Ahmadenijad’s thinking, “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 appear.”

He had this to say about Iran’s nuclear program: “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 . . .”

“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 defenses, 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 Tehran [in April], 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.”

Mr. Taheri also points out that Tehran has “reactivated Iran’s network of Shia organizations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco.”

Islamic fundamentalism in a variety of forms is spreading from country to country with no successful reverses. The latest country to come under the control of fundamentalists is Somalia, whose capital city, Mogadishu, fell to militants in early June.

Militant Islam is a powerful force that seems destined to grow greater and to bring increasing turmoil around the world. Among the adherents of Shia Islam the expectation of the Mahdi is feeding their zeal toward the fulfillment of apocalyptic events.

The Shiites expect a messiah. One will come, but not the one they think they are preparing for! GN

The west is vehemently against Nejad’s becoming president for second term, and most likely they will have their guy, Moussavi, into office which will mean another decade of life insurance for the Tehran regime since Moussavi will start dealing and wheeling with the west. Or, altenratively, to show what a good lap dog he is for the west, he will set the stage by preparing a good event for the beginnings of the break-up of Iran into little “Iranestans”– This is an 80-year old plan by western intelligence services and IRI has been doing its best to make it come true.
We are seeing the beginnings of it in Baluchestan and Azerbaijan. Khuzestan’s cessation will then be a she-in after those…

However: and this is a big ‘however’, Nejad will not sit still even if he loses the election. He will most likely form a group or faction of his own and start throwing all he got on the ‘Europeans mullahs’ corruption and will reveal all he knows on them. Baseej may follow Nejad and choose him as their de-facto leader, this may culminate into a coup against Moussavi ‘to save the revolution’s values’ if Moussavi or Karrubi’s names are pulled out of the voting booths.

Nejad is backed by China and Russia, and so is Khamenei, and it is highly unlikley that they will just sit on their hands and let the anglo-saxon-owned mullah lap dogs and their cohorts take over.

I agree, chance of riots and civil war, even a coup d’etats by Baseej and/or Pasdaran will increase daily from this point on if Nejad does not get re-elected.

Add to that the chance of assassinations of the top guns on each side of the battle, while the various Islamic Mafias go after each others throats. Mohammad Khatami(EU’s favorite lap dog mullah), Rafsanjani(Corrupt anglo-saxon-owned mullah-in-chief), Khamenei(Russia), and Nejad himself(Cino-Russian tool) are top on the assassination target list from the 2 factions.

Let the shooting begin!

Israel under Netnyahu(NOT your previous Netnayahu anymore, he is now a dog without teeth) has been pretty much neutered by Hussein Obama gang and will be no threat to the Tehran regime henceforth. Hussein Obama saw to that. So the chance of Israelis doing much about this is pretty near nill.

France, on the other hand, may be another story since they have a free hand to act in the Persian gulf without any political angst — something US cannot do anymore. France wants to become a neo-colonialist-Imperialist again and has chosen Iran and Persian Gulf as its new territory to do so. France may potentially play a big role in the break-up of Iran when the time comes, and of course claim a piece for itself like other rabid dogs gathering around in the region for the event.

But in the end, if people of Iran do not eradicate the WHOLE of this regime themselves(highly doubtful judging by street dancing taking place unde re guise of elections, they will be even bigger losers than they have been in the last 30-years.

And that’s no matter how much Dr. Ledeen likes Moussavi to become the next president of Islamic Republic of Terror in Iran , too!
BBC has aposition for anyone who loves Moussavi, by the way.

p.s.

Dr Ledeen, you have not yet clarified yourself on the “Culture that loves to deceive” comment referring to Iranaians; and that is despite many objections to that statement in this forum.
How should we take your silence to mean??

On one hand Ahmadinejad, Israel’s favorite candidate, basically has blown up fuses and he practically bite anyone that he could reach. In his debate he huffed and puffed that Tony Blair has sent him “PERSONAL letter” of apology. Few days later the English and Farsi version of the letter came out and it turned out the letter was from UK embassy in Tehran and there were NO SINGLE word that says anything about apology to Iran!!!! This is shocking, embarrassing and another huge spit on Ahmadinejad’s face. I read the letter in English and that makes Ahmadinejad a total retard to shoot himself in the foot, balls and brain.

Majority of people are tired of him regardless of how A. hole is Rafsanjani and his gang. So he did his best to connect Mousavi to Rafsanjani.

There is a possibility of riots and very possibly RG getting involved. But I think at the end, people’s side will win, which hopefully is one X-small step toward real democracy in Iran. So it is possible that Israel and other who drool to have Ahmadinejad in power do things that makes the situation more favorable to him. We’ll see.

Already physical fights are taking place in Tehran and other cities between the two sides. Ahmadinejad has unleashed the Basiji people to go after Mousavi’s supporters, but I think this will reverse side as millions and millions of people will synchronized their pissing to flood the city with their unhappiness. So all Iranians need to do is drink more tea! And I have not even included the bonus points if Iran loses or lower its chance of World Cup few days before the election.

I have a theory too
Election is a sham but it allows people to blow out a steam. If there were no elections people would think that government do not listen do them, that they have control over nothing so they would get very angry and that might lead to radical change. On the other hand allowing for some choice in elections Iranians have some control over who is the president therefore they have some control over the government – or they think they have. Therefore there is minimal chance of violent overthrow of government and much less chance of major non-violent change.

Alireza

Neither Mousavi nor Ahmadinejad direct Iranian foreign policy, furthermore power holders in Iran do have a power to remove current president from his position. If, like you claim, Ahmadinejad works for Israel why Khamenei does not remove Mr. A, have you ever thought that perhaps he too works for Israel, hmm…………..?

Cyrus

Taroof anyone?

And if the election is a sham, why did the government termporarily shut down Facebook (used by Moussavi’s supporters to drum up support)?

This is why Iranian elections are boycotted by many reformers. Otherwise, the country’s huge problems would probably result in 80%-90% turnout.

I–like you–would like a different regime But the reality is that the Iranian people don’t.

The reality is the mullahs don’t give them the chance to vote for real reform. There are definite indications they would vote for reform if allowed.