There's method in the Mahdi madness of Iran's president

Iran has "broken the seals". The phrase refers to the seals placed by UN nuclear inspectors on equipment that, unsealed, enables uranium enrichment, making possible the development of a nuclear bomb.

It has a suitably apocalyptic ring. In the Book of Revelation, the Lamb breaks the seven seals and earth-shattering violence ensues: "…the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together… And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men… hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains".

Our own not-quite-chief captain, Jack Straw, took refuge instead in a BBC studio. It is almost physically impossible to keep one's attention on the Foreign Secretary as he smothers meaning in his blanket of official phrases about IAEA governing bodies and Chapter Seven UN Resolutions and "prior stages" before anything like sanctions actually happens, but I did hear him yesterday venture the opinion that "in Iran things are difficult". You've got to give it to the man: he's right.

It is just a pity that Mr Straw recognises it only now. Ever since he became Foreign Secretary in 2001, Mr Straw - and British policy more generally - has been devoted to the idea that we can make friends with Iran.

Mr Straw went there five times on those expeditions that the Foreign Office loves as much as botanists love the search for rare seeds in the Karakoram - hunting for the "moderates". Our eggs were placed in the fragile basket of former President Khatami's "reformists" and were duly addled. In the presidential election last year, Britain decided that the winner would be another "moderate", Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Mr Rafsanjani is "moderate" only in the sense that Molotov was more moderate than Stalin or Goering than Hitler, but anyway, this man of Straw did not win. The victor was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the mayor of Teheran.

Since coming to power, Mr Ahmadinejad has organised an international conference designed to prove that the Holocaust never happened and has declared it the aim of Iranian policy to "wipe Israel off the map". Now he is fulfilling his country's long-planned strategy of making the means to do just that: he has broken the seals. Iran can have its own Bomb in four years or so.

Relentless media attention in the West has focused on the errors of the Coalition in Iraq, and plenty of errors there have been. But almost no scrutiny from press or Opposition has been given to the way that the supposedly intransigent George Bush has actually been so accommodating to European sensibilities that he has delegated the policy on Iran to Europe. This has produced the current disaster.

For years now, the "EU Three" - Britain, France and Germany - have been in charge, emboldened since 2005 by the personal support of Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. They have wanted to believe that they were dealing with a power that was negotiating in good faith. They have spurred that power on to greater excesses by declaring that Western military action was (Mr Straw's word) "inconceivable". They have hoped against hope and against evidence. Only this week did they finally admit defeat. They agreed, which earlier they had refused, to try to take Iran's behaviour to the Security Council.

What is the West facing in the government of Iran? I read in yesterday's Times that President Ahmadinejad is a "naïve extremist". It is an assumption of Western foreign policy elites that extremists are, by definition, naïve, but is it so?

The point about Iran since 1979 is that it has been governed by revolutionaries; and the history of revolutionaries - successful ones, anyway - is that they are often mad and bad and incredibly skilful all at the same time.

Thus Hitler could genuinely believe in crazed racial theory and outmanoeuvre the chancelleries of Europe. Thus Chairman Mao could promote deranged, famine-inducing economics, while at the same time keeping a grip on power for a quarter of a century.

Westerners tend to see the Iranian revolution as "medieval", but this is a slander on the Middle Ages. "Twentieth century" would be the more accurate description. When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, he encouraged his lieutenants to be well versed in the history of revolutions, particularly the communist revolution in Russia.

If you look at Iranian "democracy" today, you will see that the only candidates allowed are those committed to the constitution's idea of the "guardianship of the clergy" (a rule which, at the last parliamentary election, permitted the Council of Guardians to disqualify 6,000 of the 7,000 who wanted to stand).

This is a religious version of the Leninist idea of the "leading role of the party". In 1979, Khomeini said that his revolution was the first step ''in correcting the past of Muslim history''. He meant radicalising Shiism to take over the Muslim world.

That's what Ahmadinejad means, too. Last September, he addressed the United Nations in a speech that called on God to hurry up and send along his "Promised One". This was a reference to the strong Shi'ite belief in a Mahdi, or Hidden Messenger, who will reappear in the world to rule it aright.

Recalling his own speech afterwards, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "One of our group told me that, when I started to say 'In the name of God, the almighty, the merciful', he saw a light around me and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change and, for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink."

By putting himself inside this aura, Mr Ahmadinejad may be at once sincere and cynical. He may truly think that God is bringing the Mahdi his way, but he will also know that by identifying with this strand of Shi'ism he can seem to be a Robin Hood for the poor against corruption. He may also be hinting, some experts believe, that, if the Hidden Messenger is coming, the increasingly unpopular clergy and their Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Khamenei) could be superseded by truly holy, non-clerical persons, eg himself and his Revolutionary Guard.

The Bomb, blessed by God, will make Iran proud. It will force the West to let Iran dictate terms in the region, give Mr Ahmadinejad the prestige to crush dissent in his own country and help him grab world Muslim leadership, taking over Iraq. Mad, perhaps, terrifying, certainly, but perfectly sane as a way of staying on top.

What can we do? There may be sanctions and other forms of isolation that would work. For instance, although full of crude oil, Iran is short of petrol and has to import a great deal from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Without that, it would be in trouble.

But the bigger question concerns the West's extraordinary indulgence (Mr Straw calls it "patience") towards the regime. Why don't we distinguish government from people and reach out to the latter? In the contest of the West with revolutionaries, we win in the end when we help their victims rise up against them, when the people themselves, not our tanks, take down the Berlin Wall.

"......the supposedly intransigent George Bush has actually been so accommodating to European sensibilities that he has delegated the policy on Iran to Europe. This has produced the current disaster....."

I really don't know what it is with us Europeans - we seem to have it in out psyche to believe that anyone and everyone is susceptible to reason. That everyone at base is a jolly good chap and if only dictators, and fascist mullahs would see sense everything would be OK.... If we are deluded like that (along with your dear Democrats) why trust us with Iran - it was always going to end in tears. Negotiate? Tea anyone?

What can we do? There may be sanctions and other forms of isolation that would work.

Oh, my. Sanctions. That would certainly work.

Even better, how about more talk, which Europe is so good at? That would please everyone, at least until the nuclear bombs start going off.

With respect to Iran: I was wondering if all the statements about nuclear weapons from Iran is designed to keep the US from noticing what Iran is doing in Iraq. We are dealing with cunning devils and obvious moves may not be the ones which we need to watch.

Also, as an old Internet user, I clearly recall that Iran was supposed to have bought 4 land mobile ICBMs from the old Soviet Union when it dissolved together with the technicians to maintain and operate them. The CIA had pics if I recall properly. One can guess the targets for 4 ICBMs. Any recollections.

If we are deluded like that (along with your dear Democrats) why trust us with Iran - it was always going to end in tears. Negotiate? Tea anyone?
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Well, perhaps we just had our hands a bit full with other world despots and demons we cowboys have unjustly and illegally and precipitously roped over the past 5 years.

Not to mention the EU countries are up to their eyeballs in business deals with an Iran we have almost singly officially sanctioned for the past 25 years. Surely you had the contacts to engage in meaningful diplomacy with those "Iranian moderates" the EU, the UN and our own Foggy Bottom keep digging through the manure pile of Iranian politics to find?

Besides, at least in the foreseeable future, Europe is going to be within range of Iranian nuke-armed missiles commanded from probably German engineered C3 links. Not us. How's that going to work for you?

Tea sounds good. No lemon.

40 years of endless negotiations for "an ever closer union", where everyone had to follow certain rules (except keep your budget in line, apparently), has trained a generation of European diplomats to focus on process rather than results.

In reading the piece, I couldn't help thinking about Monty Python's "holy hand grenade."

Seriously, the Left in the US is pretty soon going to start claiming GWB "let" the Iranians have a nuclear weapon through inaction. We conservatives have to make a pre-emptive strike, by demonstrating that Euro-style "patient negotiations" didn't work with Iran, and wouldn't have worked in Iraq either.

"Promised One". This was a reference to the strong Shi'ite belief in a Mahdi, or Hidden Messenger, who will reappear in the world to rule it aright.

I don't think the Muslim/Arab world will buy a Persian Mahdi.

If Mr Ahmadinejad can be packaged to Europe as a religious nut maybe they will do something.

President Bush really had no choice but to let Europe lead in the discussions with Iran, since America is the Great Satan and our embassy in Tehran has never been returned.

And discussions were the only option, since Europe and Russia didn't want to play the UN card.

Now it finally appears that Europe has reached the same conclusion that America did some time ago, which is that Iran is not dealing in good faith and discussions will lead nowhere.

That's a good thing, because Europe was certainly concerned that America was attempting to dictate global foreign policy. So Europe got its chance to lead and succeed.

Now that it's failed to pull off that miracle, perhaps America and Europe, perhaps joined by Russia, can agree to work together at the UN to increase pressure on Iran.

Time is short, though. It's now or never to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. Once they have it, the power shifts dramatically.

The question is, why would the Russians suddenly start to cooperate, when they have been the ones chiefly responsible for giving Iran nuclear weapons and only recently offered them surface to air missiles to protect themselves?

Iran has mainly been doing the work of the French and the Russians ever since Jimmuh deposed the Shah and the French sent their old pal Khomeini back in.

Russia may act to delay matters further by referring this to the UN, but what kind of resolution will the Russians and the French allow in the Security Council?

I think the Russians hoped it would play out that they would supply the fuel for a peaceful nuclear program while remaining the chief arms supplier to Iran for conventional weapons.

But even they can't actually want Iran with the Bomb, and that's where this is headed. When Iran turned down the Russian proposal it forced a reassessment in Moscow. I think Russia will allow a series of increasingly strong measures to pass the Council, including trade sanctions, in an effort to force Iran back to the Russian proposal.

We'll see.

The only reason I can think of would be because of our going into Iraq with out permission from the UN. If we did it there we would have no problem doing it again and Russia knows it.

So the only reason for them to cooperate is to keep a foot in the door of Iran, to have a say in the Mid East. China is the real question, our going into Iran has even larger implications than it does for Russia.

Neither China nor Russia wants us with a foothold in Central Europe, true. But I can't think of a course of conduct more likely to draw us in than what they have pursued.

I doubt whether we have ambitions to occupy Iran, however, even for the short term. So maybe their best option would be to get rid of the mad mullahs and let us turn our attention elsewhere.

Both countries are within range of Iranian missiles, and subject to attacks by Muslim terrorists. I wish they would stop playing with fire.

Ahmadinejad is simply repeating the standard Shi'ite doctrine about the Mahdi appearing at the end of time to kill all the nonmuslims, convert the rest, and rule over the earth in a shar'ia utopia for a while until the final trumpets sound.

But he is not alone. For decades Muslims have been flooded with propaganda that these are the End Times. Certainly thousands, perhaps millions of them believe it.

It is extremely dangerous to mix nuclear weapons with the belief that there is NO FUTURE.

The Sunnis have their own version of the Mahdi: instead of being the 12th Shi'ite Imam, he will be a restorer of the Caliphate, who will spread Islam world-wide.

For more information on Muslim millennialism, see here.

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