[Mb-civic] FW: Later than we think By Arnaud de Borchgrave

[Golsorkhi]

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From: "Farhad Sepahbody" <sepa at sedona.net>
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 19:29:16 -0700
To: "Golsorkhi" <grgolsorkhi at earthlink.net>
Subject: Fw: Later than we think By Arnaud de Borchgrave

 
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Subject: Re: Later than we think By Arnaud de Borchgrave

Later than we think
By Arnaud de Borchgrave

The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran's now
18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in
his own lifetime. He'll be 50 in October.
    President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser
mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th
Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be
Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is
said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age 5. His return
will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this
cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi
will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
    "The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will
be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam],
who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute
peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last
repository, the promised one." He reckons the return of the Imam, AWOL for
11 centuries, is only two years away.
    Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is
governed by the conviction the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the
creation of chaos on Earth." He has fired Iran's most experienced diplomats
and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share his belief
in apocalyptic conflagration.
    The Iranian leader's finger on a nuclear trigger would be disquieting
under any circumstances. Positively alarming would be a nuclear weapon in
the hands of a man who badgers Israel, the U.S. and the European Union in
belief a pre-emptive aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will hasten
the return of the missing Mahdi. Such an attack presumably would trigger
anti-Western mayhem throughout the Middle East.
    When he became Iran's sixth president since the 1979 revolution last
summer, Mr. Ahmadinejad decided to donate $20 million to the Jamkaran
mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the faithful can drop their missives
to the "Hidden Imam" in a holy well. Tehran's working-class faithful are
convinced the new president and his Cabinet signed a "compact" pledging
themselves to precipitate the return of the Mahdi -- and dropped it down
Jamkaran's well with the Mahdi's zip code.
    In Mr. Ahmadinejad's eyes, Iran is strong, with oil inching up to $70 a
barrel and America, dependent on foreign oil, is weak. He has said publicly
America and Europe have far more to lose than Iran if the U.N. Security
Council votes for tough economic sanctions. He also figures if Israeli
and/or U.S. warplanes strike Iran, all he has to do is give the U.S. a hard
time in Iraq as American forces prepare to withdraw.
    Moving two or three Iranian divisions into Iraq and activating Shi'ite
suicide bombers and hit squads throughout the region would not be too hard
for a country that fought an 8-year war against Iraq (1980-88) and had no
compunction about giving thousands of youngsters a key to paradise and 72
virgins before sending them across Iraqi minefields.
    A top Ahmadinejad officer, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Kossari, who heads the
political watchdog, or Security Bureau, of Iran's armed forces, recently
taunted the U.S. when he bragged "we have identified all the weak points of
our enemies" and have sufficient cannon fodder -- i.e., suicide operation
volunteers -- "ready to strike at these sensitive locations." Iranian
television recently broadcast an animated film for Iranian children
glorifying suicide bombers.
    So far, Supreme Leader and Chief of State Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who
sits in the holy city of Qom, has not expostulated. Mr. Ahmadinejad appears
to have his religious rear well covered. His ideological mentor and
spiritual guide is Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi who heads the ultraconservative
acolytes who believe the 12th Imam's return is "imminent."
    The son of a blacksmith, Mr. Ahmadinejad earned an engineering Ph.D. and
is a former member of Iran's notorious Revolutionary Guards at a time when
dissidents and "counterrevolutionaries" were executed by the thousands.
    A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, first showed Iran how
to build a nuclear weapon 18 years ago. He opened his nuclear black market
to Iranian engineers and scientists.

 The Bush administration is anxious to clear the decks in a democratic Iraq
before facing the Islamist counterpart of the "Rapture" in the "Left Behind"
series of books on the end of times by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
    President Bush says all options are on the table. But the military
option is probably the one the "twelvers" would look forward to. Some
Washington think tank strategists argue if Iran's Dr. Strangelove attacked
Israel with a nuclear weapon, five Iranian cities would be vaporized next
day. 
    It might behoove the United States to sit down with "axis of evil" Iran
to find out if the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine that kept the
Soviet Union and the U.S. at peace for a half-century could still be made to
work. 
    In any event, one would have to be irredeemably myopic not to see that
Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. The only question is how far
this secret program is from delivering a usable weapon and fitting it in the
nose cone of a Shahab-3 missile with the range to reach Israel. The Israeli
Air Force will be "overhead" Iran long before.
     
    Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large for The Washington Times and for
United Press International.


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