From the American Thinker:
By James Lewis
This will sound alarming. A literal reading of Ahmadi-Nejad's UN address suggests that he is predicting a total war coming soon.
The key is in his invocation and his conclusion. Normal official communications by Muslims start with, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful." A'jad followed that formula immediately with:
"Oh God, hasten the arrival of Imam Al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attend to his rightfulness." [italics in the official Iranian version]
Sounds like a pretty standard invocation, but it's not. It is a specific call for the Shiite Messiah, who will bring a final holy war, the final jihad, which in the Khomeini cult implies all-out war with the infidels to bring about the Millenarian Age of Paradise on Earth. (For Khomeini, the term "infidels" includes Sunni Muslims, who do not recognize the Mahdi). That is why Khomeini started the nuclear program twenty years ago, and why it has been pushed consistently by all the major cult leaders.
A'jad put the message explicitly in his peroration, i.e., his summary and conclusion.
"I officially declare that the age of relations arising from the Second World War as well as materialistic thought based on arrogance and domination is now over." (italics added)
Translation: The West, and particularly the United States, emerged dominant after World War Two. Israel declared independence in 1948. The dominance of the West is now over.
use of the phrase "I officially declare" indicates how he views himself as Allah's representative on earth; a very common paranoid fantasy, but one that is taught by the Khomeini cult as part of its explicit doctrine. Cult members who are otherwise quite sane can believe such things (as in the Rev. Jim Jones' suicide cult following.)
This declaration is followed by A'jad's messianic prediction.
"Humanity has passed a perilous precipice and the age of monotheism (i.e., Khomeini Shiism), purity, affinity, respecting others, justice and peace-loving has now commenced." (I.e., the End of Times is at hand; italics added). "It is the divine promise that the truth will be victorious and the earth will be inherited by the righteous." Translation: We will win the coming war. "The era of darkness will end, prisoners will return home, the occupied lands will be freed, Palestine and Iraq will be liberated from the domination of the occupiers, and the people of America and Europe will be free from the pressures exerted by the Zionists." (That's clear enough.) "Without any doubt, the Promised One who is the ultimate Savior will come. ... This is the promise of God, and therefore it will be fulfilled." The "Promised One" refers to the messiah, the "occluded Mahdi," who disappeared in the 9th century as a five year old child, and whose return Khomeinists are imminently expecting. This passage is notably blasphemous to the Sunni wing of radical Islam, which admits of no equals to Allah and his Prophet Mohammed. A'jad is saying that the Mahdi will indeed transcend Mohammed, who did not bring about Paradise on Earth.
But the Mahdi will not come without actions of the believers.
"Let's play a part in the fulfillment of all this glory and beauty.""I wish for a bright future for all human beings and the dawn of liberation and freedom for all humans ... A wish which I expect will be fulfilled in the near future." (Italics added)
Don't forget that A'jad already fulfilled his Islamic obligation to send an ultimatum to the leaders of the infidel nations to convert to Islam or die. He sent personal letters to President Bush and German Chancellor Merkel saying exactly that. In his version of Islamic law, he has fulfilled the requirements for starting his holy war against the West.
Or, to put it in his typical threat language, he has said,
"If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future... bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept [to do this], the Iranian nation will... force you to surrender and bow down."
The Columbia University talk now also falls into place. In A'jad's deeply indoctrinated mind, the students laughing at his absurd claim that there are no homosexuals in Iran simply confirmed how steeped they are in sexual sin. Columbia was Soddom and Gomorrah in this world view, and God destroyed those cities after their inhabitants refused to repent from homosexual activities. In his eyes he gave them their last chance.
The fact that many Jews demonstrated against him in the streets of Manhattan, and that President Bollinger asked some sharp questions, will also confirm his existing beliefs.
The UN talk therefore becomes a final notice to the nations of the world. Khomeini himself set the conditions for total war:
"I say let this land (Iran) burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."
That is the description of an all-out nuclear war.
How would that war start? Michael Medved claimed on the radio that Israeli intelligence expects an Iranian nuclear device within the next 18 months. The CIA supposedly claims about five years. The IAF air attack on a putative Syrian "agricultural research station" on the Euphrates River may have hit nuclear materials or missiles. It also demonstrated that the vaunted Russian air defense system just purchased by Iran and Syria does not work. A follow-up attack into Iranian airspace may therefore occur soon, before the Iranians change their codes and defense configuration.
In A'jad's world, it is desirable to be attacked first, so he can point the finger of guilt at the attackers. His is a martyrdom tradition, and it is essential for there to be plenty of martyrs on his side. It motivates the cult followers to greater sacrifice -- see the Iran-Iraq War, and repeated statements by A'jad that "martyrdom is powerful." By openly claiming to have 3,000 working centrifuges in Natanz, he is in effect inviting an attack on that facility, putting the US and Israel in a cleft stick. At some point they cannot fail to attack and try to destroy the centrifuges.
Dr. Jack Wheeler of "To the point news" reported that,
"One of India's top generals assigned to liaise with the Iranian military recently returned to New Delhi from several days in Tehran -- in a state of complete amazement." [....]"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing," he reports. "No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, ‘Do you think the Americans will attack us?' ‘When will the Americans attack us?' ‘Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic."
This is important, because in its public propaganda, the Tehran regime has been telling its people that they are just seeing "psychological warfare" from American and Israel. But internally, the military and government in Iran seem to have a different and more serious interpretation. Wheeler argues that after the IAF attack of September 6, both Syria and Iran were shown to be defenseless against air attack, even with their brand-new Russian Pantsyr anti-air system.
The implication is for a quick attack on Iran. But it is vital to keep in mind the classic joke about the sadist and the masochist, where the masochist yells out, "whip me! whip me!" and the sadist answers, sadistically, "no!" So there is a case for taking the sadist's point of view, and continuing to threaten the Tehran regime without actually striking it. That would upset their expectations, and indeed their psychological need to be provoked into justified rage. For that reason, rather than overt air attacks, under-the-public-radar sabotage operations are always preferable.
It must be said that there is a real possibility that the martyrdom regime has planted retaliatory dirty bombs in various places around the world, to go off if Iranian targets are hit. A'jad has said that
"The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes [America and the West] should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region."
That warning could not be clearer. Retaliatory bombs could exist in small coastal freighters or other delivery vehicles in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, and in or near the US. The regime has been signing up hundreds of Basiji for martyrdom operations. Those are cheap cannon fodder for them, like the teenagers who were trained to move right into minefields in the Iran-Iraq war, wearing green plastic "keys to paradise" around their necks, to clear the way for assault troops. That is the environment in which A'jad developed his understanding of war.
Sending hundreds of kids to martyrdom on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini must play havoc with anyone's mind. Ahmadi-Nejad may not have been directly involved in doing that, but he must certainly have known about it during the Iran-Iraq War and approved of it, else he would not be trusted by the Khomeinists who run Iran to become president.
Psychologically, that life experience implies immense personal survival guilt, along with a readiness to commit suicide oneself to bring about the messianic age of the Mahdi. That is an almost inconceivable state of mind for Westerners who have grown up in a generally peaceful world.
What are the implications for the West? First of all, any action against the cult regime should come at a time and place of our choosing, if possible different from the cult predictions. But our hand is being forced by unverified claims by A'jad to possess 3,000 centrifuges. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other countries may have good intelligence sources in Iran, which are needed to check this astonishingly bizarre, dangerous and secretive regime.
Second, it is critical to neutralize the fanatical leadership which sustains their delusional system in any major attack. That in itself is very difficult, since humans are easier to hide than industrial facilities. But special ops teams must silence the command, communication and control capacity of the regime instantly.
During the Syrian bombing operation, reports suggested that the entire Syrian communications grid was knocked out. Even cell phones connections in neighboring Lebanon were disrupted. Special Forces were believed to be on the ground, laser-designating the target, and supposedly smuggling out samples. They may also have sabotaged the communications grid, including hardened communications between Pantsyr anti-air defenses. It was a successful dress rehearsal.
Thirdly, unlike the one-shot Israeli attack in 1981 on Saddam's Osirak nuclear reactor, any attack on Iran today may trigger extended hostilities, including assaults on civilians far away from the theater of war. Previously the Iranian Guard (including Ahmadi-Nejad) committed attacks on Jewish synagogues in Buenos Aires. The people who did that are in charge today in Tehran. So this time there will surely be a barrage of Hezb'allah missiles directed at civilians in Israel, like last summer, but possibly much more accurate.
As soon as military action starts, pressure will be brought to bear to shut it down prematurely. For once that pressure must be resisted. This gang is too dangerous to leave them with any of their total war capacities intact. A'jad just flew to Venezuela to arrange for added supplies of refined oil products which Iran cannot make at home. He is planning for a long war. He may increase Iranian meddling in Iraq, but a conventional Iranian invasion of Iraq is unlikely, since conventional forces are highly vulnerable from the air, and the US controls the air.
It seems vital for the West not to take military action until the Iranian nuclear plan has become quite clear. As suggested previously, one possibility is for the IAF to attack several established nuclear targets in Iran, with the United States allowing Israeli overflights of the Gulf. If and when Iran attempts to retaliate against Israel, or even Saudi Arabia, using missiles and aircraft, USN Gulf defenses would be automatically triggered, bringing US forces into the fight. The Saudis would not be happy with Iranian military overflights, since Khomeini fanatics believe they must eventually rule the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Iran may try to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, leading to US actions to open the Straits as the guarantor of free shipping through international waterways.
Contrary to the Saddam war, today we have France and Germany in support. Whether that actually means anything, or whether they will bend to domestic opposition, is anybody's guess. They could turn out to be weak sisters. But at least they are not actively sabotaging us, as they did with the overthrow of Saddam.
A very dangerous time is coming up. If we are very lucky, the world will be saved by some brilliant secret raids and naval actions along the lines of the Tanker War of the 1990s. With even greater luck there will be a military coup d'etat, throwing the Khomeinist fanatics out of power. But these are extremely ruthless people. Right now it seems more likely there will be an extended conflict, along the lines that the West and Israel will find most difficult to deal with.
If a major Israeli city is severely hit, Israel may respond with massive retaliation. In the Osirak reactor strike of 1981, Israel managed to kill only one person. The coming battle with Iran may make that impossible.
If this interpretation is correct, we have some very difficult times coming up. Our domestic political dialogue has been utterly immature since 9/11. But the prospect of hanging in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully, and it is possible that some on the Left will wake up. The Iranians are quite capable of stirring up terrorist retaliation in their war of Armageddon. They are suiciders, like the kamikaze cult of WW Two: Very difficult to deal with indeed. Making adequate civil defense preparations may become a crucial part of everyday life, even in the United States. Our feeling of immunity to direct attack is simply out of date. I wonder whether Democrats will allow us to improve protection against domestic attacks?
In making rational predictions of danger we always hope to be wrong. But we cannot plan based on hope alone.
By James Lewis
This will sound alarming. A literal reading of Ahmadi-Nejad's UN address suggests that he is predicting a total war coming soon.
The key is in his invocation and his conclusion. Normal official communications by Muslims start with, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful." A'jad followed that formula immediately with:
"Oh God, hasten the arrival of Imam Al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attend to his rightfulness." [italics in the official Iranian version]
Sounds like a pretty standard invocation, but it's not. It is a specific call for the Shiite Messiah, who will bring a final holy war, the final jihad, which in the Khomeini cult implies all-out war with the infidels to bring about the Millenarian Age of Paradise on Earth. (For Khomeini, the term "infidels" includes Sunni Muslims, who do not recognize the Mahdi). That is why Khomeini started the nuclear program twenty years ago, and why it has been pushed consistently by all the major cult leaders. A'jad put the message explicitly in his peroration, i.e., his summary and conclusion.
"I officially declare that the age of relations arising from the Second World War as well as materialistic thought based on arrogance and domination is now over." (italics added)
Translation: The West, and particularly the United States, emerged dominant after World War Two. Israel declared independence in 1948. The dominance of the West is now over.
use of the phrase "I officially declare" indicates how he views himself as Allah's representative on earth; a very common paranoid fantasy, but one that is taught by the Khomeini cult as part of its explicit doctrine. Cult members who are otherwise quite sane can believe such things (as in the Rev. Jim Jones' suicide cult following.)
This declaration is followed by A'jad's messianic prediction.
"Humanity has passed a perilous precipice and the age of monotheism (i.e., Khomeini Shiism), purity, affinity, respecting others, justice and peace-loving has now commenced." (I.e., the End of Times is at hand; italics added). "It is the divine promise that the truth will be victorious and the earth will be inherited by the righteous." Translation: We will win the coming war. "The era of darkness will end, prisoners will return home, the occupied lands will be freed, Palestine and Iraq will be liberated from the domination of the occupiers, and the people of America and Europe will be free from the pressures exerted by the Zionists." (That's clear enough.) "Without any doubt, the Promised One who is the ultimate Savior will come. ... This is the promise of God, and therefore it will be fulfilled." The "Promised One" refers to the messiah, the "occluded Mahdi," who disappeared in the 9th century as a five year old child, and whose return Khomeinists are imminently expecting. This passage is notably blasphemous to the Sunni wing of radical Islam, which admits of no equals to Allah and his Prophet Mohammed. A'jad is saying that the Mahdi will indeed transcend Mohammed, who did not bring about Paradise on Earth.
But the Mahdi will not come without actions of the believers.
"Let's play a part in the fulfillment of all this glory and beauty.""I wish for a bright future for all human beings and the dawn of liberation and freedom for all humans ... A wish which I expect will be fulfilled in the near future." (Italics added)
Don't forget that A'jad already fulfilled his Islamic obligation to send an ultimatum to the leaders of the infidel nations to convert to Islam or die. He sent personal letters to President Bush and German Chancellor Merkel saying exactly that. In his version of Islamic law, he has fulfilled the requirements for starting his holy war against the West.
Or, to put it in his typical threat language, he has said,
"If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future... bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept [to do this], the Iranian nation will... force you to surrender and bow down."
The Columbia University talk now also falls into place. In A'jad's deeply indoctrinated mind, the students laughing at his absurd claim that there are no homosexuals in Iran simply confirmed how steeped they are in sexual sin. Columbia was Soddom and Gomorrah in this world view, and God destroyed those cities after their inhabitants refused to repent from homosexual activities. In his eyes he gave them their last chance.
The fact that many Jews demonstrated against him in the streets of Manhattan, and that President Bollinger asked some sharp questions, will also confirm his existing beliefs.
The UN talk therefore becomes a final notice to the nations of the world. Khomeini himself set the conditions for total war:
"I say let this land (Iran) burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."
That is the description of an all-out nuclear war.
How would that war start? Michael Medved claimed on the radio that Israeli intelligence expects an Iranian nuclear device within the next 18 months. The CIA supposedly claims about five years. The IAF air attack on a putative Syrian "agricultural research station" on the Euphrates River may have hit nuclear materials or missiles. It also demonstrated that the vaunted Russian air defense system just purchased by Iran and Syria does not work. A follow-up attack into Iranian airspace may therefore occur soon, before the Iranians change their codes and defense configuration.
In A'jad's world, it is desirable to be attacked first, so he can point the finger of guilt at the attackers. His is a martyrdom tradition, and it is essential for there to be plenty of martyrs on his side. It motivates the cult followers to greater sacrifice -- see the Iran-Iraq War, and repeated statements by A'jad that "martyrdom is powerful." By openly claiming to have 3,000 working centrifuges in Natanz, he is in effect inviting an attack on that facility, putting the US and Israel in a cleft stick. At some point they cannot fail to attack and try to destroy the centrifuges.
Dr. Jack Wheeler of "To the point news" reported that,
"One of India's top generals assigned to liaise with the Iranian military recently returned to New Delhi from several days in Tehran -- in a state of complete amazement." [....]"Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing," he reports. "No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, ‘Do you think the Americans will attack us?' ‘When will the Americans attack us?' ‘Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly. The Iranians are in a state of total panic."
This is important, because in its public propaganda, the Tehran regime has been telling its people that they are just seeing "psychological warfare" from American and Israel. But internally, the military and government in Iran seem to have a different and more serious interpretation. Wheeler argues that after the IAF attack of September 6, both Syria and Iran were shown to be defenseless against air attack, even with their brand-new Russian Pantsyr anti-air system.
The implication is for a quick attack on Iran. But it is vital to keep in mind the classic joke about the sadist and the masochist, where the masochist yells out, "whip me! whip me!" and the sadist answers, sadistically, "no!" So there is a case for taking the sadist's point of view, and continuing to threaten the Tehran regime without actually striking it. That would upset their expectations, and indeed their psychological need to be provoked into justified rage. For that reason, rather than overt air attacks, under-the-public-radar sabotage operations are always preferable.
It must be said that there is a real possibility that the martyrdom regime has planted retaliatory dirty bombs in various places around the world, to go off if Iranian targets are hit. A'jad has said that
"The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes [America and the West] should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region."
That warning could not be clearer. Retaliatory bombs could exist in small coastal freighters or other delivery vehicles in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, and in or near the US. The regime has been signing up hundreds of Basiji for martyrdom operations. Those are cheap cannon fodder for them, like the teenagers who were trained to move right into minefields in the Iran-Iraq war, wearing green plastic "keys to paradise" around their necks, to clear the way for assault troops. That is the environment in which A'jad developed his understanding of war.
Sending hundreds of kids to martyrdom on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini must play havoc with anyone's mind. Ahmadi-Nejad may not have been directly involved in doing that, but he must certainly have known about it during the Iran-Iraq War and approved of it, else he would not be trusted by the Khomeinists who run Iran to become president.
Psychologically, that life experience implies immense personal survival guilt, along with a readiness to commit suicide oneself to bring about the messianic age of the Mahdi. That is an almost inconceivable state of mind for Westerners who have grown up in a generally peaceful world.
What are the implications for the West? First of all, any action against the cult regime should come at a time and place of our choosing, if possible different from the cult predictions. But our hand is being forced by unverified claims by A'jad to possess 3,000 centrifuges. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other countries may have good intelligence sources in Iran, which are needed to check this astonishingly bizarre, dangerous and secretive regime.
Second, it is critical to neutralize the fanatical leadership which sustains their delusional system in any major attack. That in itself is very difficult, since humans are easier to hide than industrial facilities. But special ops teams must silence the command, communication and control capacity of the regime instantly.
During the Syrian bombing operation, reports suggested that the entire Syrian communications grid was knocked out. Even cell phones connections in neighboring Lebanon were disrupted. Special Forces were believed to be on the ground, laser-designating the target, and supposedly smuggling out samples. They may also have sabotaged the communications grid, including hardened communications between Pantsyr anti-air defenses. It was a successful dress rehearsal.
Thirdly, unlike the one-shot Israeli attack in 1981 on Saddam's Osirak nuclear reactor, any attack on Iran today may trigger extended hostilities, including assaults on civilians far away from the theater of war. Previously the Iranian Guard (including Ahmadi-Nejad) committed attacks on Jewish synagogues in Buenos Aires. The people who did that are in charge today in Tehran. So this time there will surely be a barrage of Hezb'allah missiles directed at civilians in Israel, like last summer, but possibly much more accurate.
As soon as military action starts, pressure will be brought to bear to shut it down prematurely. For once that pressure must be resisted. This gang is too dangerous to leave them with any of their total war capacities intact. A'jad just flew to Venezuela to arrange for added supplies of refined oil products which Iran cannot make at home. He is planning for a long war. He may increase Iranian meddling in Iraq, but a conventional Iranian invasion of Iraq is unlikely, since conventional forces are highly vulnerable from the air, and the US controls the air.
It seems vital for the West not to take military action until the Iranian nuclear plan has become quite clear. As suggested previously, one possibility is for the IAF to attack several established nuclear targets in Iran, with the United States allowing Israeli overflights of the Gulf. If and when Iran attempts to retaliate against Israel, or even Saudi Arabia, using missiles and aircraft, USN Gulf defenses would be automatically triggered, bringing US forces into the fight. The Saudis would not be happy with Iranian military overflights, since Khomeini fanatics believe they must eventually rule the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Iran may try to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, leading to US actions to open the Straits as the guarantor of free shipping through international waterways.
Contrary to the Saddam war, today we have France and Germany in support. Whether that actually means anything, or whether they will bend to domestic opposition, is anybody's guess. They could turn out to be weak sisters. But at least they are not actively sabotaging us, as they did with the overthrow of Saddam.
A very dangerous time is coming up. If we are very lucky, the world will be saved by some brilliant secret raids and naval actions along the lines of the Tanker War of the 1990s. With even greater luck there will be a military coup d'etat, throwing the Khomeinist fanatics out of power. But these are extremely ruthless people. Right now it seems more likely there will be an extended conflict, along the lines that the West and Israel will find most difficult to deal with.
If a major Israeli city is severely hit, Israel may respond with massive retaliation. In the Osirak reactor strike of 1981, Israel managed to kill only one person. The coming battle with Iran may make that impossible.
If this interpretation is correct, we have some very difficult times coming up. Our domestic political dialogue has been utterly immature since 9/11. But the prospect of hanging in a fortnight concentrates the mind wonderfully, and it is possible that some on the Left will wake up. The Iranians are quite capable of stirring up terrorist retaliation in their war of Armageddon. They are suiciders, like the kamikaze cult of WW Two: Very difficult to deal with indeed. Making adequate civil defense preparations may become a crucial part of everyday life, even in the United States. Our feeling of immunity to direct attack is simply out of date. I wonder whether Democrats will allow us to improve protection against domestic attacks?
In making rational predictions of danger we always hope to be wrong. But we cannot plan based on hope alone.
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