The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Ahmadinejad's delusional vision: That HE is the Catalyst that will usher in Armegeddon. Does it GET more disturbing than this?
The world is dealing with its greatest threat in a millineum: a madman who wants to usher in the apocalypse--and who will soon have the means to do it. And yet President Bush and our impotent State Department does nothing to stop him.
Scott Johnson over at Power Line has a VERY sobering post up regarding the events in Iran over the last several weeks. From all that I have read on this man and on Khameni (the "Supreme Leader") it appears that we are dealing with a bona-fide madman, with delusions of grandeur exceeding even Hitler's, and whose zealous religious beliefs and statements seem to indicate that he truly believes that he is the "chosen one" to usher in the so-called 12th Imam and inherit the mantle of the prophet Mohammed. What, you may ask, might be necessary--in the thinking of this warped mind--to bring about these results? Oh, nothing much--unless you consider Armegeddon something to worry about... Read Johnson's post (and also follow within it the link to Hillel Fradkin's full article in the Weekly Standard)...and then tell me if you really believe in your heart of hearts that the President Bush or Isreal (or the rest of the world, quite frankly) can afford to wait for the United Nations to solve this crisis.
Here is the bottom line for the truly dense: The UN is NOT going to solve this. And it MUST be solved, and quickly. Our time is running out.
This is about as sobering as it gets, folks:
Hillel Fradkin's essay on the letter from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to President Bush is the cover story of the new issue of the Weekly Standard: "Reading Ahmadinejad in Washington." Fradkin's essay is by far the best thing I have read on Ahmadinejad's letter; for the most part, it does not directly address the clueleness of previous commentary on the letter, but it demonstrates it. Fradkin writes:
Neither the Bush administration nor its many critics appear to appreciate the significance, ideological and practical, of the letter. Nor do they appear to appreciate the remarkable boldness of Ahmadinejad personally. For the formal characteristics of the letter as well as its substance have ancient and modern analogs--letters of Muhammad to the Byzantine, Persian, and Ethiopian emperors of his day warning them to accept Islam and his rule or suffer the consequences, and a letter from Khomeini to Mikhail Gorbachev along similar lines.
Thus, Ahmadinejad presents himself as the true heir of Muhammad and Khomeini and may even be suggesting that he is a founder himself. At the least, he presents himself as the spokesman and leader of Islam and the Muslim world in its entirety, transcending the Shiite/Sunni divide. Both this boldness and this claim are consistent with the whole series of pronouncements and actions Ahmadinejad has taken in the brief period since he was elected last summer. But the letter, in its form and substance, raises this to a new and much higher level of clarity and power as well as menace.
Fradkin's essay comes on the heels of yesterday's reports of Iran's new dress code. The reports appear to emanate from Ami Taheri's account in yesterday's National Post, carried in today's New York Post: "Iran okays Nazi social fabric." Taheri's description of the law's separate dress codes for religious minorities has been denied by Iranian authorities, and the status of the dress code is uncertain. but Taher's description of the rationale is of interest:
According to Ahmadinejad, the new Islamic uniforms will establish "visual equality" for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam.
Taheri has previously discussed the relevance of Ahmadinejad's belief in the Hidden Imam to Iran's nuclear exploits. Iran's leaders have not stinted in explaining their intentions and their actions. See, for example, Mark Steyn's invaluable City Journal essay "Facing down Iran" and Mathias Kuntzel's New Republic essay "Ahmadinejad's demons." It is long past time that we take the words and thoughts of Iran's leaders as they have explained them to us seriously. In his City Journal essay, Steyn writes:
In the latest variation on Marx’s dictum, history repeats itself: first, the unreadable London literary novel; then, the Danish funny pages. But in the 17 years between the Rushdie fatwa and the cartoon jihad, what was supposedly a freakish one-off collision between Islam and the modern world has become routine. We now think it perfectly normal for Muslims to demand the tenets of their religion be applied to society at large...
He deduces five elements of Iranian foreign policy:
Anyone who spends half an hour looking at Iranian foreign policy over the last 27 years sees five things:
1. contempt for the most basic international conventions;
2. long-reach extraterritoriality;
3. effective promotion of radical Pan-Islamism;
4. a willingness to go the extra mile for Jew-killing (unlike, say, Osama);
5. an all-but-total synchronization between rhetoric and action.
Paul Starobin's National Journal essay on Iran and deterrence downplays the religious component of Iranian action. Starobin accordingly finds it appropriate to juxtapose the thought of Bernard Lewis -- the world's foremost living scholar of Islam -- with the thought of Michael Scheuer -- a nut. Lewis thinks Iran would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons despite mutual assured destruction; Scheuer thinks otherwise. One of them knows what he's talking about.
UPDATE: AJ Strata agrees. That fact alone is disturbing too:
Iran Preparing For Armageddon?
I noted a while back that Iranian President Ahmedinejad is highly delusional, in that he sees himself in touch with the last prophet that will grace the world before its end.
Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a “clash of civilisations” in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the “infidel” West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.
Or he is the last prophet, or something. What sets Iran apart from previous world threats is their Jim Jones maniacal vision where mass suicide and murder is a path to heaven. We know they are preparing their arsenal for this final battle on earth. But we do not know how close they are to be ready. I fear news I just read at Powerline could mean they are getting close.
I agree. Time is short. You can read the rest here.
Scott Johnson over at Power Line has a VERY sobering post up regarding the events in Iran over the last several weeks. From all that I have read on this man and on Khameni (the "Supreme Leader") it appears that we are dealing with a bona-fide madman, with delusions of grandeur exceeding even Hitler's, and whose zealous religious beliefs and statements seem to indicate that he truly believes that he is the "chosen one" to usher in the so-called 12th Imam and inherit the mantle of the prophet Mohammed. What, you may ask, might be necessary--in the thinking of this warped mind--to bring about these results? Oh, nothing much--unless you consider Armegeddon something to worry about... Read Johnson's post (and also follow within it the link to Hillel Fradkin's full article in the Weekly Standard)...and then tell me if you really believe in your heart of hearts that the President Bush or Isreal (or the rest of the world, quite frankly) can afford to wait for the United Nations to solve this crisis.
Here is the bottom line for the truly dense: The UN is NOT going to solve this. And it MUST be solved, and quickly. Our time is running out.
This is about as sobering as it gets, folks:
Hillel Fradkin's essay on the letter from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to President Bush is the cover story of the new issue of the Weekly Standard: "Reading Ahmadinejad in Washington." Fradkin's essay is by far the best thing I have read on Ahmadinejad's letter; for the most part, it does not directly address the clueleness of previous commentary on the letter, but it demonstrates it. Fradkin writes:
Neither the Bush administration nor its many critics appear to appreciate the significance, ideological and practical, of the letter. Nor do they appear to appreciate the remarkable boldness of Ahmadinejad personally. For the formal characteristics of the letter as well as its substance have ancient and modern analogs--letters of Muhammad to the Byzantine, Persian, and Ethiopian emperors of his day warning them to accept Islam and his rule or suffer the consequences, and a letter from Khomeini to Mikhail Gorbachev along similar lines.
Thus, Ahmadinejad presents himself as the true heir of Muhammad and Khomeini and may even be suggesting that he is a founder himself. At the least, he presents himself as the spokesman and leader of Islam and the Muslim world in its entirety, transcending the Shiite/Sunni divide. Both this boldness and this claim are consistent with the whole series of pronouncements and actions Ahmadinejad has taken in the brief period since he was elected last summer. But the letter, in its form and substance, raises this to a new and much higher level of clarity and power as well as menace.
Fradkin's essay comes on the heels of yesterday's reports of Iran's new dress code. The reports appear to emanate from Ami Taheri's account in yesterday's National Post, carried in today's New York Post: "Iran okays Nazi social fabric." Taheri's description of the law's separate dress codes for religious minorities has been denied by Iranian authorities, and the status of the dress code is uncertain. but Taher's description of the rationale is of interest:
According to Ahmadinejad, the new Islamic uniforms will establish "visual equality" for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam.
Taheri has previously discussed the relevance of Ahmadinejad's belief in the Hidden Imam to Iran's nuclear exploits. Iran's leaders have not stinted in explaining their intentions and their actions. See, for example, Mark Steyn's invaluable City Journal essay "Facing down Iran" and Mathias Kuntzel's New Republic essay "Ahmadinejad's demons." It is long past time that we take the words and thoughts of Iran's leaders as they have explained them to us seriously. In his City Journal essay, Steyn writes:
In the latest variation on Marx’s dictum, history repeats itself: first, the unreadable London literary novel; then, the Danish funny pages. But in the 17 years between the Rushdie fatwa and the cartoon jihad, what was supposedly a freakish one-off collision between Islam and the modern world has become routine. We now think it perfectly normal for Muslims to demand the tenets of their religion be applied to society at large...
He deduces five elements of Iranian foreign policy:
Anyone who spends half an hour looking at Iranian foreign policy over the last 27 years sees five things:
1. contempt for the most basic international conventions;
2. long-reach extraterritoriality;
3. effective promotion of radical Pan-Islamism;
4. a willingness to go the extra mile for Jew-killing (unlike, say, Osama);
5. an all-but-total synchronization between rhetoric and action.
Paul Starobin's National Journal essay on Iran and deterrence downplays the religious component of Iranian action. Starobin accordingly finds it appropriate to juxtapose the thought of Bernard Lewis -- the world's foremost living scholar of Islam -- with the thought of Michael Scheuer -- a nut. Lewis thinks Iran would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons despite mutual assured destruction; Scheuer thinks otherwise. One of them knows what he's talking about.
UPDATE: AJ Strata agrees. That fact alone is disturbing too:
Iran Preparing For Armageddon?
I noted a while back that Iranian President Ahmedinejad is highly delusional, in that he sees himself in touch with the last prophet that will grace the world before its end.
Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a “clash of civilisations” in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the “infidel” West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.
Or he is the last prophet, or something. What sets Iran apart from previous world threats is their Jim Jones maniacal vision where mass suicide and murder is a path to heaven. We know they are preparing their arsenal for this final battle on earth. But we do not know how close they are to be ready. I fear news I just read at Powerline could mean they are getting close.
I agree. Time is short. You can read the rest here.
