Iran's Expanding Threat

Iran continues to expand its uranium enrichment program in defiance of the UN Security Council, now debating possible sanctions against it.
 
 

New intelligence reports say that within the past few weeks Iranian nuclear experts had started up a second pilot enrichment facility. Iran produced a small batch of low-enriched uranium in February, using its initial cascade of 164 centrifuges at its pilot plant at Natanz.

The process of uranium enrichment can be used to generate electricity or to create an atomic weapon, depending on the level of enrichment.

Iran said it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at its enrichment plant in Natanz, central Iran, by the end of this year.

Industrial production of enriched uranium in Natanz would require 54,000 centrifuges. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced this week that his country's nuclear capability has increased tenfold despite Western pressure to roll back its atomic program.

"The enemies, resorting to propaganda, want to block us from achieving (nuclear technology)," Ahmadinejad told a crowd on the southern outskirts of Tehran.

"But they should know that today, the capability of our nation has multiplied tenfold over the same period last year."

He said over the weekend that Israel would soon disappear. "This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence. Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed... You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said.

"You imposed a group of terrorists ... on the region," Ahmadinejad said, addressing the U.S. and its allies. "It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

"Nations will take revenge," he told hundreds of thousands of supporters at a pro-Palestinian rally in the capital Tehran.

It is important to keep in mind what Ahmadinejad has in mind for the Middle East and for the West.

Islam shares a belief in a final seven year period of apocalypse where sinful man is judged together with the expectation of a messiah figure who will come at the end of the age. Ahmadinejad believes he is the man who will bring this Messiah-figure back.

The Mahdi, according to Iran's state religion, is Muhammad ibn Hasan, the "righteous descendant of the prophet Mohammed" who has been in hiding for a thousand years.

His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

Ahmadinejad believes that the Mahdi's return can be influenced when the time is right. Therefore, by starting the end-times conflict between Dar al Islam (the Zone of Islam) and Dar al Haran (the Zone of War), he can actually HASTEN the Mahdi's return.

"The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one."

Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the creation of chaos on Earth."

His ideological mentor and spiritual guide is Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi who heads the ultraconservative acolytes who believe the 12th Imam's return is "imminent."According to Muslim tradition, the Mahdi is believed to ride forth on a white horse at the head of his forces.

In their book, "Al Mahdi and the End of Time", Muhammad Ibn ‘Izzat and Muhammad ‘Arif, two well-known Egyptian authors, identify the Mahdi from the Book of the Revelation.

In one place, they write, "I find the Mahdi recorded in the books of the Prophets… For instance, the Book of Revelation says: “And I saw and behold a white horse. He that sat on him…went forth conquering and to conquer.”

‘Izzat and ‘Arif then go on to say: "It is clear that this man is the Mahdi who will ride the white horse and judge by the Qur’an (with justice) and with whom will be men with marks of prostration on their foreheads."

Islam holds that the Mahdi is the rider on the horse, the first of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." "behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer." (Revelation 6:2)

Christian interpretation of this verse is more or less unanimous in their understanding that the rider on the white horse is the antichrist.

So that is who a nuclear Iran is putting their trust in to see them victorious over the infidels and the Jews. The Mahdi, a rider on a white horse whose followers wear marks of prostration on their foreheads.

It is unlikely that kind of fanaticism will be deterred by more meaningless Security Council resolutions.