Apocalyptic Ahmadinejad rattles sabre

[Jag]

The President of Iran is the West's looming nightmare - and this week he is promising to make matters worse. Sarah Baxter reports

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August 21, 2006

IF some Iran-watchers in the US are to be believed, we could be 24 hours away from the day of judgment. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's President, has promised to deliver tomorrow his response to international demands that Iran stop enriching uranium for nuclear use.


By the Islamic calendar, Tuesday is also a holy date: the night when Mohammed rose to heaven from the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on a "buraq", a fabulous winged beast with the body of a horse and the face of a woman, and reappeared in Mecca. Will Ahmadinejad seize the moment to unveil the possession of some new fissile material or weapons system - perhaps a nuclear-tipped one?
Bernard Lewis, the West's foremost scholar of Islam, has even warned that on such a symbolic date it would be wise to bear in mind the possibility of a "cataclysmic" event such as a strike on Israel.

The messianic Shia President could have waited another nine days for the deadline set by the UN for his response on nuclear enrichment; but his obsession with theology and numerology appears to be hastening his decision. He seems in no mood to retreat. "Nuclear power is our right. No one can take this away from us," he told cheering crowds recently. "Our main task is to develop and build the Iranian nation. No one will stop us."

That is no idle boast. While all eyes have recently been focused on Israel and Lebanon, the world may have been looking in the wrong direction. The most serious challenge to the West is not a resurgent Hezbollah but Iran, the guerillas' oil-rich patron.

This week, to coincide with Ahmadinejad's "judgment day" speech, Iran is launching a new round of sabre-rattling military manoeuvres. Nobody has stopped it on its path to nuclear power - and nobody looks likely to.
How immediate is the Iranian threat?

An expert on the Middle East, Ilan Berman, is based at the American Foreign Policy Council. He said last week: "I'm not in the camp that believes the end of the world will come about on Tuesday, but there is a strong apocalyptic strain in Ahmadinejad and his group. He is positioning Iran to be in the vanguard of the clash of civilisations with the West."

Even those experts who say Ahmadinejad is no more apocalyptic than fundamentalist Christians (including Bush himself), who believe there will be a day of "rapture" when the faithful will be lifted to heaven, agree that the Iranian President has his eyes firmly set on nuclear weapons.

There is no doubt that he is a millenarian who believes in the coming of the 12th imam, the mahdi (or messiah) of Shia theology. In his first speech to the UN last year, he startled his audience by begging "O mighty Lord" 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".
While his piety is no pose, Ahmadinejad is a shrewd political opportunist. He has consolidated his power by playing the game of "holier than thou". Vali Nasr, a professor at the US Naval Postgraduate school and author of an influential book, The Shia Revival, says: "The leaders of Iran are hardline, revolutionary militants and men of power, but they are not crazy."


this can be read in full at.....
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...89-601,00.html

Interesting to say the least!
Jag

[American Patriot]

I heard an expert whose name I didn't catch on television yesterday, while flipping channels.

He made some remarks about the madhi returning "from a well" and that there "must be an apocolypse before this can happen". He also stated that Ahmadinejad wants very strongly to bring this about because he believes that the madhi can not return without this apocolypse.

[American Patriot]

And Now Iran
middle east ^ | 2006-08-21 | Patrick Seale



Iran's reply to the US-European offer to suspend uranium enrichment is due on 22 August and a demand to suspend by 31 August is coming up. Patrick Seale analyzes the momentum of the next act in a Middle East filled with crises.


Crunch time is approaching for Iran's nuclear programme. Two key moments in the coming days could determine whether the world is heading for confrontation or negotiation with Iran.


* On 22 August, Iran is due to reply to a package of economic incentives which the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, offered it on 6 June, if it suspends uranium enrichment.


* Iran also faces a demand to suspend all uranium enrichment by 31 August, or face sanctions, under a UN Security Council Resolution of 31 July.


So, what are the prospects?


One thing is clear. Iran will not yield to threats. On 15 August, addressing the subject for the first time since the Security Council Resolution of 31 July, Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran would not yield to Western pressure to give up its nuclear ambitions.


He told UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: "These gentlemen are mistaken in believing that they can use the Resolution as a stick. The Iranian people will never accept the language of force." The Iranian position, he said, was based on the inalienable rights of the Iranian people. No one could renounce these rights.


He added, however, that Iran was "ready to settle the nuclear question by means of negotiations." This more flexible position was repeated on August 16 by Iran's Foreign Minister, Manushehr Mottaki. Iran, he declared, was ready to discuss all aspects of the proposed Western package of incentives. "One of the points of the package is the issue of suspension. We are ready to negotiate over all issues including suspension."


A day earlier, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, had gone further by saying that Iran was ready to provide guarantees. It was prepared, he said, to give the West its production line of 164 centrifuges which had been enriching uranium since last April.


"A single production line of centrifuges is not in the least worrying," he said. "But if they are really worried, we are ready to give them this production line!"


What do these various statements amount to? It seems clear that Iran remains determined to master the uranium fuel cycle. It argues, with some justice, that it has every right to acquire this technology for peaceful purposes under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory. It is prepared, however, to subject its nuclear programme to international monitoring as provided by the NPT, and even to give the Western powers further guarantees if required.


This is a strong negotiating position, which will be difficult to fault. Iran's strategy appears to be to master nuclear technology - under the watchful eye of international inspectors, if need be - but without actually proceeding to bomb making. That threshold could be passed rapidly if and when Iran faced an imminent threat of attack.


Will this posture satisfy the United States? Almost certainly not. But is there anything it can do about it? At the Security Council, the United States is likely to face obstruction by China and Russia if it attempts to impose sanctions on Iran.


As for a US military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, this would be widely seen as an act of folly which could plunge the entire region into devastating turmoil. It would drive up the price of oil to astronomic heights, introduce vast and dangerous uncertainty over oil deliveries from the entire Gulf region, and severely affect America's increasingly desperate attempts to master the insurrection in Iraq.


Given the circumstances, it may be that the world will have to settle for what Iran is offering - that is to say a carefully monitored nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. Iran would, nevertheless, retain the option in an emergency of quitting the NPT and switching its nuclear programme from civilian to military uses.


It needs to be stressed that Iran could never use a nuclear weapon against Israel or indeed anyone else, without committing suicide as a nation. The immediate response by Israel and the United States would be to wipe Iran off the map. The only use, therefore, to which Iran could put a nuclear weapon would be as a deterrent against attack.


Could Israel accept such a compromise? It would require a revolution in Israeli security thinking. Israel's leaders have persuaded themselves - and their public - that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel itself and to Western civilization as a whole. This, of course, is nonsense.


The suspicion is that Israel and the United States want to shut down Iran's nuclear programme, not because they think it might pose a realistic military threat to either of them, but because it would limit their freedom of action to impose their will on the region.


Israel still refuses to accept any form of a balance of power, or of a balance of deterrence, with states or non-state actors in the region. In spite of the severe setback it suffered in Lebanon, Israel still has not accepted that its policy of dominating its neighbours by military force needs to be abandoned.


Israeli strategists - and their neocon allies in Washington - see Hizbullah as a forward outpost of Iran. With the Lebanon War, they tried to destroy Hizbullah in order to weaken Iran and make it more vulnerable to attack. They wanted to rob Iran of the ability to hit back by means of Hizbullah.
The war has demonstrated the flaws in this thinking. But, as the latest commando raid on Baalbek demonstrates, Israel has no respect for the ceasefire of 14 August. It will violate it at will. It is unlikely to give up its attempts to kill Hizbullah commanders, and especially its leader, Hasan Nasrallah.


Speaking on the BBC a few days ago, Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN, said, "If the international community does not disarm Hezbollah, we will do it." This does not suggest that Israel has yet digested the lessons of the war.


It must also be assumed that Israel and its American ally will not easily give up their attempts to disrupt or end Iran's nuclear programme by all possible means. The coming weeks and months are unlikely to be peaceful.


Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

[Jag]

CIVIL DEFENSE

The Greatest Generation has Nothing on US

Tehran is under High Alert right now

August 21st 2006 Posted to Anti-Terror
In the event Iran may try to do something foolish, Civil Defense took the added measure of positioning adequate counter measures. America can rest tonight with ease. Civil Defense has the Watch!

Jag

[Sean Osborne]

Is that the 'fat lady' who has yet to sing?

[Jag]

Could be, she sits that plane well! This Doomsday stuff for the 22 is all over the net this evening from blogs to mass media, everywhere one looks. Thought the "lady" might lighten it up a little.

Jag

[Bastastic]

I was talking to a co-worker who happens to be Muslim. Joking around I asked him if he had any plans for tomorrow. He looked at me with a serious face and asked what I meant by that remark. I asked if tomorrow was a holy day for Muslims, he replied yes. I then asked if Muslims celebrated the day in any way, shape, or form. Still not understanding what I meant, I asked very simply "Are you coming in to work tomorrow or are you taking the day off to celebrate your holy day?" He looked as me as if I slapped him in the face. In a very low voice he said to me, "You are very misinformed Adam. I am not a terrorist if that what you are thinking. Tomorrow is a holy day for me, but that is no reason for me to celebrate." After that he walked out of the room. Not knowing how to react or what to say I went back to work. For some reason, I got a bad feeling for tomorrow.

[Jag]

You're in good company Bastastic....This little piece is coming off of Drudge

Is Tomorrow Doomsday?

August 21, 2006 12:52 PM

While no extra safeguards are in place, U.S. law enforcement are not ignoring the possible significance of tomorrow's date, August 22, a date that marks an important historic event on the Islamic calendar.

Internet websites have been full of speculation that it could be a target date for terrorists in commemoration of the return of the 12th imam, a supposed day of reckoning for Shiites.

August 22 was rumored by intelligence experts to be a possible date that the London plotters would blow-up passenger planes headed towards the United States, though it is not known if the suspects were Shiite extremists.

This year, August 22 marks the holy day on the Islamic calendar that is the day of reckoning for Shiites. Some Shiite sects believe that August 22 could correspond to the end of the world. And just today, after much hype, Iran has announced that it will continue to develop its nuclear program. To followers of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, this is a well-timed affront to Israel, the United States and the world. The United Nations had given Iran until the end of the month to respond, but Ahmadinejad had made it clear to all Iranians and the world that he intended to respond on the eve of August 22.

Whether or not this announcement is the end of Ahmadinejad's plans for August 22, one expert says we will have to wait and watch.

"The only thing we can know is that the date was not chosen by accident," said Robert Spencer, Director of Jihadwatch.org and an adjunct fellow at the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank. "It does seem very likely, very probable, that he has something major in mind, whether only a major announcement or a major attack, we will soon see."

Everyone's talking!
Jag