Okay -- Iran's leader is also a WACKO NUT, on a mission from God!

[DeepModem Mom]

Sound familiar??? Apparently, even Iranians didn't see this guy coming. And he and Bush seem headed for a confrontation. I hope it's not the final one.


UK Telegraph: 'Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader
By Anton La Guardia
(Filed: 14/01/2006)

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?"...(L)isten 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....

***

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....

***

This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus....

***

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?...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/14/wiran14.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/14/ixworld.html

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Jeebus, George W Bush vs George W Ahmadinejad?

BOTH need to be stopped!!!:scared:

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Let's face it,

these fanatical fundamentalists are equally dangerous, whichever hymn book they happen to be singing from. :scared: SG

[tsuki]

3. Okay, I vote for Bush and Ahmadinejad in a WWE ring and let

Vince ref. Loser resigns.

[rustydad]

4. Actually

I watched his news conference yesterday on C-Span. He was in a smallish auditorium seated on a raised stage behind a desk. Behind him was a row of flowers and a beautiful painted mural of a snow covered mountain. Quite a divergence from Washington type backdrops of a wall of repeat slogans like *war for peace* or other BS. In any case he took questions and it was very clear they were not staged questions as are bushcos. His answers were sincere and well thought out. Many were quite long. He does not seem to be a typical politician but more like a school teacher which he was. I liked him. He did not say anything crazed. When asked about his statement that "Israel should be wiped off the map" he explained that if Israel complied with international law and UN resolutions and allowed for the return of exiled Palestinians and the full freedom of Palestinians to vote in National elections then Israel would shortly become Palestine again by the demographics of population. He was not speaking of destroying Israel in a war but by politics. We must be careful when judging people from afar seen only through the prism of the press. As we all should know the mainstream press is no longer to be trusted to give us a clear view of affairs. Bob

[bpilgrim]

5. thanks for sharing

all this hyperbolic war mongering rhetoric is disgusting on the M$M. I am always thankful for DU in helping to balance things out... at least we get to hear 2 sides of the story here.

:toast:

peace

[riverwalker]

6. that was my impression too

I thought, this is the "raving mad man"? It was a more open presidential press conference than any I have seen in this country.

[rustydad]

9. The media

The media is in lock step with the war mongers. War is the ultimate seller of news and the inherent advertising revinues. They must play ball with the war mongers in order to have access to the war mongers. A sinister dance if ever there was. Remember Hearst and the war to take Cuba from the Spanish? bob

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Not "raving," but...

from the article: "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."


I am not proposing war with Iraq, God forbid, but I am not blind to dangerous religious fanaticism in countries other than the U.S. and relgions other than Christianity.

[DeepModem Mom]

8. Unlike Bush, this man is articulate and intelligent --

but I don't think dangerous religious fanatics are confined to our own country, or the Christian religion.

[rustydad]

10. Clash of cultures

The real problem may be with the very great differences in our cultures, not so much religions. Many cultures historically have been led by a combination of politics and religion intertwined. I am not so quick to say that our system is superior. The real issue though is can Iran, if led by a religious fanatic, hurt us? I would say the threat is extremely low if at all. It is more of the same *weapons of mass destruction* that was used to justify the Iraq invasion. We want and need all that oil pure and simple. Bob

[DeepModem Mom]

12. I agree with you. We don't need war with Iraq, God forbid.

It just seems that this guy's unexpected messianism has not helped the situation re. Iran, especially given our own leadership.

[rustydad]

14. My guess....

...is that his *messianism* is for the home audience much like Chavez in Venezuela. And for the same reasons that bush included Iran in the list of *evil nations*. I don't think for a second that he is planning on the return of the Messiah any day soon or that he would start a nuclear holocaust in order to bring Jesus back for the Rapture. The scariest people on the planet right now are in Washington and Tel aviv. bob

[leesa]

7. You know...Iran was pretty much just minding their own business until we

started messin' with the area again. Same old...same old...

[Crunchy Frog]

13. He's like a mirror image of Bush.

God help us. He wouldn't even be in power if it weren't for Bush stirring up nationalism and reactionary trends in the region.