Apocalyptic Ahmadinejad rattles sabre

[lovuian]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20192889-2703,00.html

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.
http://media.theaustralian.news.com.au/20060820-wargames_player.htm

Iran War games starting


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.

more...

Move over Rapturists theres a new guy in town...

[Warren Stupidity]

1. "Nuclear power is our right"

oh that is some belligerant talk there. And then this bit of sabre rattling: "Our main task is to develop and build the Iranian nation. No one will stop us" how dare he! The noive!

The article is a big old substance-avoiding smear. What sabre rattling exactly did Ahmadinejad engage in? The sabre rattling is all emanating from DC. Ahmadinejad is rapidly becoming the most consistently misquoted man on the planet.

[elehhhhna]

2. Convenient that he speaks no English. I consider all translations

suspect.

[acmavm]

3. Why fight it? They're going to be making this shit up about Iran,

Ahmadinejad, and a nuclear threat up to the day that either Israel or the US starts dropping bombs on that country.

I don't understand how the Austrailian media is as messes up as the British and US. But then I also don't understand for the life of my how Howard got re-elected either.

[lovuian]

4. Its a WWIII kinda thing going on

the world has some very sad leaders right now

[anakie]

17. Howard was re elected on a platform based on fear

interest rates and an opposition leader who was useless.

The media in Australia is nowhere near as bad as what you guys have. Politicians are asked difficult questions. If they squirm most journalists will go for the jugular. Even 'The Australian', despite being a Murdoch paper is rather readable with no overt (as in American overt) bias.

[Deja Q]

5. Maybe the US could offshore TO Iran.

That way, we're nationbuilding AND preventing a silly war at the same time! :rofl:

Still, Iran wants to provoke a fight. Eventually they're going to have it and * cannot be blamed. This time.

[lovuian]

15. This is sad times ahead here

hopefully peace will prevail

[AlinPA]

6. Don't the right-wingers here pray for the rapture thing when all this

happens? Jesus comes back and all the Jack Van Impes and Pat Robertsons and Falwells and their followers (Bush** crowd)are going be raptured or saved or whatever.

[Deja Q]

7. They get saved... in their bunker.

[FormerDem06]

16. Yes, and the Iranian President belives that by causing war

he can bring the Islamic Savior the Mahdi, or the 12th Imam out of a well behind the Jamkaran mosque in Qom, Iran.

This savior is a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed who vanished in the middle of the 9th century at the age of 9 with a promise that he would return and bring Islam to its total fruition, as the world’s last standing religion.

Last September at the end of a speech in front of the United Nations and translated on TV, Ahmadinejad prayed:

“Oh mighty lord, I pray to you 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."

A few days later in Iran, Ahmadinejad told a group of religious leaders that, during his UN speech, he felt a bright light around him.

“I felt it myself. I felt that the atmosphere suddenly changed, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, all the leaders of the world did not blink. When I say they didn’t move an eyelid, I’m not exaggerating. They were looking as if a hand was holding them there, and had just opened their eyes to the message of the Islamic Republic.”

In Shiite Muslim belief, the Madhi’s second coming will be marked by apocalyptic times. Wars, famines, and floods will ravage the Earth—followed by Judgment Day and a battle between good and evil.

Some wonder if Ahmadinejad believes these are the end times. And, whether his calls for the destruction of Israel and nuclear pursuits are ways to accelerate this process.

Ahmadinejad’s government reportedly gave $20 million to help renovate the Jamkaran mosque. There are rumors that he is planning to build a railway line connecting Tehran and Jamkaran, to ferry the faithful.

And apparently, Ahmadinejad has also drawn up plans for the road that the Mahdi will take when he returns.

And if all this wasn’t mystical enough, there is also the belief that when the Mahdi comes back, he will be accompanied by Jesus Christ, who is referred to as the prophet Isa.

The Mahdi will take Jesus to Mecca and they will circumambulate the Kabah together. The Mahdi will teach Jesus to pray, at which time Jesus will then replace the Gospel with the Koran, and then all of us wherever you are on the face of the Earth, will convert to Islam because Islam will be deemed the one lasting pure religion.

And all it takes is a little pestilence, famine, war and plague. Is everybody ready?

[AlinPA]

22. Sounds like some of the logic of the US right wing religious nuts who

control the White House.

[Emit]

25. Do you have a link or source for that info?

Thanks.

[FormerDem06]

26. Not sure what acceptable sources are but here are few....

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/184cb9fb-887c-4696-8f54-0799df747a4a.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/14/wiran14.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/14/ixworld.html
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_10945.shtml

[cool user name]

8. The article lost credibility when it asserted:

Bernard Lewis, the West's foremost scholar of Islam ...

That's a crock.

[cali]

20. It's a crock when it comes to modern Islam

but not when it comes to discussing medieval Islam. In that area, Lewis is really and deservedly eminent.

[cool user name]

23. Not sure how Bernard Lewis could be the world's

leading scholar on Islam when he isn't a Muslim.

Lewis, as Said asserts, is an Orientalist - perhaps he's the worlds leading Orientalist?

:shrug:

[cali]

27. His books on

medieval Islam are widely respected across the board. As for a scholar having to be a muslim to write about the history of Islam and the interface between Islamic Societies and the West- what utter and complete chauvenistic bullshit. That's like saying a Muslim historian could never be an authority on Medieval Europe, or a Jew could never be a leading historian on Christian Millennarian movements- oops, that's right, the foremost historian as regards the latter, is Norman Cohn.

[cool user name]

30. I wasn't saying that emphatically ...

In fact, I would agree that one doesn't have to be <insert whatever here> to be a scholar on any subject.

Bernard Lewis, however, strikes me as much less than qualified, especially with the introduction of "World's Leading Scholar" bullshit.

So, perhaps I should have rephrased it.

[lovuian]

9. Turkey it appears stop Iran warplanes and Syrian from

carrying missiles. US spy sattelites caught them and they will be sent back. Helped in the UN embargo against arms transfers from Syria from Itan to Hezzbohlah

The arms were purchased by Syrian Army from Iran and they were sent back...

somehow this ceasefire is looking pretty shaky

[IChing]

10. Sounds like you are doing a little sabre rattling yourself n/t

[Swamp Rat]

11. I have one request before the Apocalypse:

[Warren Stupidity]

19. Isn't the next scheduled departure tomorrow?

This is going to be great!

[Kutjara]

12. The use of Bernard Lewis as a source is telling,...

...as is the questionable labelling of him as "the world's foremost scholar of Islam." Lewis is an old-school Islamic scholar, one of the breed that Edward Said so brilliantly deflated as 'Orientalists.' Lewis strongly favors the elimination of Islam as a political force in the Middle East and it's replacement with 'secular democracies.' Arguably, much of the current neocon agenda is strongly influenced by Lewisism.

For over four decades, Lewis and his followers have held sway over Western thinking about Islam but, recently, more and more scholars are abandoning his views in favor of a deeper, more nuanced understanding of Islamic culture.

So while Lewis has certainly been the most high profile Islamic scholar in the West for many years, this has been largely due to the fact his views closely accord with Western imperialist doctrine toward the Muslim world, rather than any intellectual merits his views may have. Lewis' day is done. And Dick Cheney likes him. Need I say more?

A few links appraising Lewis' influence for interested readers:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0411.hirsh.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/alam06282003.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis

[Hatalles]

18. You hit the nail on the head. n/t

[cool user name]

24. I was thinking the same thing ...

See a few posts up!

Great minds and all ... :D

[cali]

28. Have you ever read any Lewis?

Although I think his writing on Modern Islam isn't worth the paper it's written on, that is NOT true of his work on Medieval Islam.

[Kutjara]

29. I read some of his books years ago in college.

I agree that his Medieval writings are better, largely because he doesn't let his political agenda get in the way of the scholarship. When he switches to the modern era, though, he loses all perspective and slips into the role of the idealogue.

[lovuian]

13. The Iran War Games the link is the video feed from Reuters

http://media.theaustralian.news.com.au/20060820-wargames_player.htm

It does run like a propoganda film...

Iran War Games are running for 5 weeks...

[lovuian]

14. kick

:kick:

[ck4829]

21. If Lewis is so much of a scholar of Islam then how come he connects

Ahmaninejad to Iran going nuclear?

The truth of the matter is that Iran's missiles are not Ahmaninejad's department.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp has that power, and they are autonomous, separate from the other armed forces of Iran.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Revolutionary_Guards_Corps

[Strelnikov_]

31. Boy, Just In Time . . .

There was a definite threat of going below $70/bbl. That crises is now averted.


Oil Rebounds On Iran Uncertainty

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5270934.stm

Iran has said it will not suspend uranium enrichment, a key demand of an international proposal aimed at resolving the nuclear program row.

It is the Opec cartel's number two oil producer and analysts fear it could halt exports if the dispute worsens.

Brent crude climbed $1.12 to close at $73.42 a barrel while US light, sweet crude settled $1.31 higher at $72.45.