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[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb
By Amir Taheri
(Filed: 16/04/2006)

Last Monday, just before he announced that Iran had gatecrashed "the nuclear club", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disappeared for several hours. He was having a khalvat (tête-à-tête) with the Hidden Imam, the 12th and last of the imams of Shiism who went into "grand occultation" in 941.

According to Shia lore, the Imam is a messianic figure who, although in hiding, remains the true Sovereign of the World. In every generation, the Imam chooses 36 men, (and, for obvious reasons, no women) naming them the owtad or "nails", whose presence, hammered into mankind's existence, prevents the universe from "falling off". Although the "nails" are not known to common mortals, it is, at times, possible to identify one thanks to his deeds. It is on that basis that some of Ahmad-inejad's more passionate admirers insist that he is a "nail", a claim he has not discouraged. For example, he has claimed that last September, as he addressed the United Nations' General Assembly in New York, the "Hidden Imam drenched the place in a sweet light".

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.

In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations.

According to this analysis, spelled out in commentaries by Ahmadinejad's strategic guru, Hassan Abassi, known as the "Dr Kissinger of Islam", President George W Bush is an aberration, an exception to a rule under which all American presidents since Truman, when faced with serious setbacks abroad, have "run away". Iran's current strategy, therefore, is to wait Bush out. And that, by "divine coincidence", corresponds to the time Iran needs to develop its nuclear arsenal, thus matching the only advantage that the infidel enjoys.

Moments after Ahmadinejad announced "the atomic miracle", the head of the Iranian nuclear project, Ghulamreza Aghazadeh, unveiled plans for manufacturing 54,000 centrifuges, to enrich enough uranium for hundreds of nuclear warheads. "We are going into mass production," he boasted.

The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a "lame-duck", unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

Thus do not be surprised if, by the end of the 12 days still left of the United Nations' Security Council "deadline", Ahmadinejad announces a "temporary suspension" of uranium enrichment as a "confidence building measure". Also, don't be surprised if some time in June he agrees to ask the Majlis (the Islamic parliament) to consider signing the additional protocols of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Such manoeuvres would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director, Muhammad El-Baradei, and Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to congratulate Iran for its "positive gestures" and denounce talk of sanctions, let alone military action. The confidence building measures would never amount to anything, but their announcement would be enough to prevent the G8 summit, hosted by Russia in July, from moving against Iran.

While waiting Bush out, the Islamic Republic is intent on doing all it can to consolidate its gains in the region. Regime changes in Kabul and Baghdad have altered the status quo in the Middle East. While Bush is determined to create a Middle East that is democratic and pro-Western, Ahmadinejad is equally determined that the region should remain Islamic but pro-Iranian. Iran is now the strongest presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the US. It has turned Syria and Lebanon into its outer defences, which means that, for the first time since the 7th century, Iran is militarily present on the coast of the Mediterranean. In a massive political jamboree in Teheran last week, Ahmadinejad also assumed control of the "Jerusalem Cause", which includes annihilating Israel "in one storm", while launching a take-over bid for the cash-starved Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ahmadinejad has also reactivated Iran's network of Shia organisations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. From childhood, Shia boys are told to cultivate two qualities. The first is entezar, the capacity patiently to wait for the Imam to return. The second is taajil, the actions needed to hasten the return. For the Imam's return will coincide with an apocalyptic battle between the forces of evil and righteousness, with evil ultimately routed. If the infidel loses its nuclear advantage, it could be worn down in a long, low-intensity war at the end of which surrender to Islam would appear the least bad of options. And that could be a signal for the Imam to reappear.

At the same time, not to forget the task of hastening the Mahdi's second coming, Ahamdinejad will pursue his provocations. On Monday, he was as candid as ever: "To those who are angry with us, we have one thing to say: be angry until you die of anger!"

His adviser, Hassan Abassi, is rather more eloquent. "The Americans are impatient," he says, "at the first sight of a setback, they run away. We, however, know how to be patient. We have been weaving carpets for thousands of years."

• Amir Taheri is a former Executive Editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper, but now lives in Europe


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/16/do1609.xml

[Rteacher]

If Bush has any strong leadership ability he should, based on this "intelligence" (presuming that it's accurate...) act very decisively in the near future to thwart Iran's ambitions. He obviously would have little support internationally (and even domestically most people would probably oppose it...) but a tactical nuclear strike now - combined with measured attacks against Iran's conventional military forces - might be an effective strategy. Of course, the risk of escalating to all-out nuclear war involving Russia and/or China is possible, but not likely, and Bush has very little to lose politically in terms of popularity...

[Tiger Beer]

maybe Bush can put Saddam back into power and he can threaten all his neighbors again and start another 1980-1988 War with Iran.

just an idea..

[Kuros]

[ddeubel]

Taheri is a CIA mole/operative. Has been for a looooooong time. This disinformation is a plant by America to once again begin escalating things so that the march onward of corporate America through war production and the military industrial complex may continue........

If anyone believes for a second all this talk of "nails" etc....they really are a joke and really don't know a thing about Iran, their people and their intelligence.......HOGWASH , all of this speculation. But then again, the Bush regime lives on this type of natural fertilizer....

DD

[jinju]

[mithridates]

[mindmetoo]

When you've got two nuclear armed powers (USA and Israel) on your border and one of them flattened the neighbor you fought for years and couldn't crack and that nuclear power flattened them in a long weekend with superior fire power, and that nuclear armed nation seems to refuse to accept you're progressing slowly towards democracy on your own terms, well, it seems to me the only logical choice is develop a nuclear deterrent.

[Gopher]

[Ya-ta Boy]

What piece of enlightenment does the article have to offer? It doesn't give a reason for Iran wanting a nuke.

[some waygug-in]

If you want a glimpse of what life is like for people in that region, watch a movie called "In this World" .

I am surprised that no one has commented on Scott Ritter's video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAPt7qL5QR0&search=scott%20ritter

It pretty much takes the hot air out of the Iran nuclear "threat" crap.


I think this whole thing has more to do with trying to scare US voters into supporting the republicants in the upcomming elections.

I also found this "enlightening".

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11431


This aside, the idea that any Iranian leader would commit national suicide in order to harm Israel is ridiculous. Lots of ��crazy�� leaders -- Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il -- have had nuclear weapons and they��ve never done anything like that. What��s more, if Iran wanted to start a war with Israel, kill a bunch of Jews, and get wiped out in the process they could do that with conventional weapons. But in more than 20 years in power, the Islamic Republic��s never done any such thing. Indeed, just over the weekend Iran announced it would offer up a paltry $50 million in aid to the new Hamas-ified Palestinian Authority compared with many hundreds of millions in funding the PA lost from Europe and the United States. Just as they taught me in Hebrew school, the Islamic world��s governments like to talk a big game about Israel, but don��t actually give a rat's ass about the issue and never have.

[Bulsajo]

[jinju]

[Bulsajo]

see above.

[Bulsajo]