'Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader


By Anton La Guardia

Last Updated: 12:33am GMT 15/01/2006





As Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is "What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?"
Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq.
President Mahmoud AhmadinejadBut listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad - recently described by President George W Bush as an "odd man" - and there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.
In November, the country was startled by a video showing Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.
When an aircraft crashed in Teheran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad promised an investigation. But he also thanked the dead, saying: "What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow."
The most remarkable aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam, and the president's belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.



One of the first acts of Mr Ahmadinejad's government was to donate about £10 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam into a holy well.
All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. A common rumour - denied by the government but widely believed - is that Mr Ahmadinejad and his cabinet have signed a "contract" pledging themselves to work for the return of the Mahdi and sent it to Jamkaran.
Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.
He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.
Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.
The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?
The 49-year-old Mr Ahmadinejad, a former top engineering student, member of the Revolutionary Guards and mayor of Teheran, overturned Iranian politics after unexpectedly winning last June's presidential elections.
The main rift is no longer between "reformists" and "hardliners", but between the clerical establishment and Mr Ahmadinejad's brand of revolutionary populism and superstition.
Its most remarkable manifestation came with Mr Ahmadinejad's international debut, his speech to the United Nations.
World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.
Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote "state terrorism", impose "the logic of the dark ages" and divide the world into "light and dark countries".
The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to "hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace".
In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.
"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It's not an exaggeration, because I was looking.
"They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that "they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad".
Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran's president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and - who knows - speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.

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preacherman:

"I wouldnt expect any talks between the US and Iran to be fruitfull. "

Why not? Raygun pulled off getting the hostages out of Iran.

His name is spelled 'R e a g a n'.

And his admin was the last one prior to this one to have a felony conviction.

Personally speaking, I just can't help but wonder how different the US's (and the West's) relationship could be today with Iran if the US and Britain hadn't meddled so much in Iran's affairs back in the 1950's and leading up to the 1979 Revolution.

Today's world is paying for the actions taken during the Cold War.

Cause all the president of Iran will do is invite us to join Islam (again) or die. This guy seriously believes Islam will soon control the world.

First off you missed the point of my post. Secondly there are plenty of Christians that feel the same about Christianity taking over the world. I suspect with good reason GWB is one of those Christians of that ilk.

Technically the PA doesn't exist. It has no control over its own area, sea,air and dry ports. It has no control over its borders. it has no control over its economy. It has no control over its sovereignty. the only thing Israel HASN'T done so far is send the palestinians off to concentration camps. They DID however shove them out of their country and force them into refugee camps in neighboring countries ( incidentally why Hezbollah got created.)
What YOU term terrorist organizations, are considered by many MANY people to be the only parties ACTUALLY fighting for Palestinian independence and freedom. The "Terrorist" label is purely subjective depending on which "side" you are on. WHATEVER their methods may be, their GOAL is INDEPENDENCE. Fact is that their "terrorism" causes FAR fewer deaths than the Israeli police actions. Now WHY is it that any action taken by Israelis that kill innocent palestinian civilians is termed a "police action". Is it because they wear uniforms? Is it because they have big guns and tanks etc? I mean they kill MORE INNOCENTS than the the palestinians.
No the attacks from Israel are a direct response to WAR. The palestinians are fighting for independence with the only means possible. And like i said, just because killing is done IN uniform and from a helicopter it does not make it any less of a terrorist action.
Israel has BEEN RECOGNIZED. That is what the Oslo Accord was about. But Israel still refused to let the Palestinians be independent. The Israelis still refused to give up expanding settlements. The Israelis still refused to get out of Palestinian areas. So it seems that recognition is NOT the only prerequisite for peace. IN ADDITION Israel seems to also demand complete control over Palestine.
I know and i wish Sharon hadn't come down with a stroke. If he had not, things would look very different today. However, Olmert retracted the hand of peace and among other things inaugurated new settlments on the West Bank. ALSO, Gaza was left as a hole int he ground with no access in or out for trade, development or anything. Is it any wonder then that the locals welcomed these organizations with open arms. Whatever they are, these organizations try to ensure that the Palestinians get educated, get medical care and money to eat. The palestinians were not allowing them in because they particularly supported attacks on Israel, but rather because these organizations provided them with those things that Israel made sure they could not get.
So the US support of Contra terrorists would have been justification for punitive actions? Besides you INSIST on looking at this from a narrow perspective. These organizations are seen as FREEDOM FIGHTERS. No amount of of denunciation by the world will change that opinion. The reality the palestinains see is that these organizations retaliate to Israeli bullying AND give them civic support. Can you give me one reason why a palestinian should not welcome these organizations when the rest of the world seems uninterested in supporting them without preconditions?

Umm. yeah.. so the past 65 years was a war over empty land. You know that isn't true at all. Just the fact that an outsider comes in and lays claim on a major city like Jerusalem is EXTREMELY unjust. How would the US feel if Britain got the notion that they wanted New York back (after all it was theirs FIRST)? Would you just hand it over to them for the sake of "peace"? Not a chance in hell.
The palestinians recognized them in the Oslo Accord. Israel gave up nothing and indeed continued the expansion of settlement onto Palestinian land.
Well just as the US pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty UNILATERALLY because Bush deemed it unfair, so too did Iran about the NPT. The NPT was a treaty developed during the Cold War and was HIGHLY BIASED in favor of those nations that already had nuclear power.

The precedence for pulling out of a treaty has been set for this millenium by the US of A. Imagine the outrageousness of another nation doing as the US does.
I agree with that. But this opinion is FURTHER STRENGTHENED by Israeli actions. As i said in my earlier post, my disagreement isn't about Israel's right to exist. What i AM saying is that current policy does NOTHING to solve the problem. All it does it put the onus ont he "other party" WITHOUT addressing the issues at hand. Because Israel's actions are the result of government policy and Palestinian action is a rsult of social forces, ISrael is the party in this conflict that has the only realistic chance of CHANGING anything. Mahmoud Abbas rail against the terrorist allt he time. The Palestinian Government CAN NOT stop ANYTHING as long as Israel continues to strenthen support for the "terrorist organizations" by its own actions.
Well that is an academic issue. While i personally think there is no doubt that the holocaust happened, the fact that dissent exists is a FACT. Not just in Iran, but in Europe and America too. In fact i think this is one of the FIRST issues that Ahmedinejad would recant on, seeing as it was an action that happened independent of any "muslim" involvement.
Sure it is in full compliance when it was one of the nations that WROTE the treaty. It's very practical that the NPT allows the US enough nukes to wipe out the world, but it does not allow other nations to even enrich uranium. It is a one-sided treaty meant to safeguard the nuclear capability of cetain nations, while denying other nations the same right. While the PRINCIPLE is non-proliferation, TRUE non-proliferation would require that NO nation INCLUDING the US owns ANY nukes. This "I can but YOU can't" business is ridiculous
uh-huh.. because Bush is certainly a "sane" guy. He started a WAR that killed more than half a million people, and justified it on UNREAL info AND sought to support it with a couple of grainy sattelite photos. I ask you. Is that the action of a "sane" person? Ahmedinejad's opinions may not sound sane to your ears. But believe me when i say that Bush's opinions certainly don't sound any saner to most non-americans.
There is definately a HUGE difference between Hitler and Ahmedinejad. Firstly Iran has yet to annex Poland. Anyhow as far as analogies go, Bush's policies are certainly more remeniscent of Hitler than is Ahmedinejad's. Fine so Bush conceals it beneath an exterior of "democracy" and "freedom", but it doesn't change the fact that the US has a FAR MORE OVERTLY AGGRESSIVE MILITARILY EXPANSIONIST portfolio than Iran.
Sort of like how Bush stated that one must follow American Capitalist Democracy or die... Isn't that what he meant when he said "you're either with us or against us"? So if Pakistan for instance had had the audacityto remain NEUTRAL in the war on terrorism... well then Bush would have considered them enemies and as such ok to be destroyed.
The point is that they do NOT wish to follow a biased treaty that gives unfair advantage to an OVERT ENEMY. However that does not mean that they do not want to TALK. It is pure lunacy of the US admin to think that any sovereign nation should accept subservience prior to negotiations. That's not how it works. And the sooner the US admin realizes that, the sooner we can get to making PEACE.
Well in that way he is no different from those who believe in armegeddon, the end of days, Rapture, Jesus' Return. As far as i have understood christianity, that is the exac`t same belief held by christians. That armageddon will happen and then jesus will come and defeat all those who oppose him. I would say that Bush as a devout christian probably believes the same no?
Sort of like how the US took the ENTIRE WORLD seriously when they objected to the IRaq war? Come on man.. don't expect to dictate behavior when you set the precedent yourself.
Yes he agrees with the President in terms of not being subservient to the US. It's called the concept of SOVEREIGNTY. However he HAS censured Ahmedinejad for his statements.
Well under a LAW which the US AGREED TO, they are supposed to reduce their carbon emmissions. What's so hard to understand about that? The point is that no parliament is bound by laws enacted by PREVIOUS parliaments. Just as Bush could unilaterally back out of a treaty signed and ratified by the Clinton admin, so to can Ahmedinejad back out of a treaty signed and ratified by his predeccessors.
Yeah, and like any other book a single sentence only makes complete sense when taken in context of the ENTIRE BOOK.
RUssia and China will NOT engage in nuclear conflict for the sake of OIL. SURVIVIAL is MORE IMPORTANT than OIL. You know as well as i do that if either china or russia got invovled in a nuke war, the war would not stop until the US, CHina and Russia have wiped each other off the map. NOBODY is gonna allow that.

The FIRST USER OF A NUKE will DEFINATELY get wiped out.
Maybe i am. But please give me an answer. WHAT criteria does the US meet that qualifies it as MORE CAPABLE of handling nuclear weapons?
"Free people from other imperial nations". Dude that is just a load of crap. The US does not give a hoot about Justice OR Democracy (Contras, Noriega and Saudi Arabia case points). What it DOES are about is its power and national intersts. That's fair enough (realpolitik), but it is absolutely abhorrent when realpolitik is hidden behind a garb of altruism. NO NATION does anything for altruistic reason, and that most CERTAINLY includes the US.

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The NPT states that a no country is allowed to develop nukes. That's not a strict guideline. that is a plain DENIAL.
Are you telling me that this is more about adherence to a TREATY than it is about the fact that Iran may have a nuke? If it is just about adhering to a treaty then i understand that nothing can be said to Israel. However if it is about the danger of NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, then JUST AS MUCH hue and cry should be raised about Israel. Oh but i forget, they are on the US side so they can do as they please.
Negotiation is not appeasement, compromise is not appeasement. Nobody is asking the US to try to pay off the Iranis. All that is being asked right now is NEGOTIATION. When Iran invades another nation and the world lets it get away with it.. THAT is appeasement. The cries of appeasement is premature.
Well i suppose that's reason enough to NOT TRY IT. Definately reason enough. It's better just to go straight to war. MUUUUCH better.