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.

I think its' time to give them what they are asking for: Darken the sky, huge earthquakes...

The Signs of the Reappearance (Qiyam) of the (Imam) who
undertakes the Office (al-Qa'im), Peace be on him, the
Period of Time of his Appearance, an Explanation of his
Life and an Extract of what is revealed about his State.

' Traditions have been reported mentioning the signs for the time of
the appearance of the Imam who will arise (qa'im), peace be on him,
and the events which will take place before his appearance, together
with the indications and features of it. Among them are: The Sufyani

will come out in revolt; the Hasanid will be killed; the Abbasids will
dispute over worldly kingdom; there will be an eclipse of the sun in
the middle of the month of Ramadan; there will be an eclipse of the
moon at the end of that month in contrast to ordinary happenings;
the land will be swallowed up at al-Bayda'; it will be swallowed in the
east-it will be swallowed up in the west; the sun will stay still from the
time of its decline to the middle of the time for the afternoon prayer; it
will rise from the west; a pure soul (nafs zakiyya)

will be killed in the
outskirts of Kufa with seventy righteous men; a Hashimite will be
slaughtered between the corner (of the Ka'ba) and the station of
Abraham); the wall of the mosque of Kufa will be destroyed; black
standards will advance from Khurasan; al-Yamani will come out in
revolt; al-Maghribi will appear in Egypt and take

possession of it
from Syria; the Turk will occupy the region of al-Jazira; the
Byzantines will occupy Ramla; the star will appear in the east giving
light just like the moon gives light; then (the new moon) will bend
until its two tips almost meet; a colour will appear in the sky and
spread to its horizons; a fire will appear for a long

time in the east
remaining in the air for three or seven days; the Arabs will throw off
the reins and take possession of their land, throwing out the foreign
authority; the people of Egypt will kill their ruler and destroy Syria;
and three standards will dispute over it (Syria); the standards of Qays
and the Arabs will come among the people of Egypt; the

standards of
Kinda (will go) to Khurasan; horses will come from the west until
they are stabled in al-Hira; the black standards will advance towards
them from the east; the Euphrates will flood so that the water comes
into the alleys of Kufa; sixty liars will come forward, all of them
claiming prophethood, and twelve will come forward from the family
of Abu Talib, all of them claiming the Imamate; a man

of important
rank of the supporters of the 'Abbasids will be burnt between Jalula'
and Khaniqin; the bridge next to Karkh in the city of Baghdad will be
established; a black wind will raise it at the beginning of the day and
then an earthquake will occur so that much of it will be swallowed up;
fear will cover the people of Iraq and Baghdad; swift

death (will
occur) there and there will be a loss of property, lives and harvests;
locusts will appear at their usual times and at times not usual so that
they attack agricultural land and crops and there will be little harvest
for what the people planted; two kinds of foreigners will dispute and
much blood will be shed in their quarrel; slaves will rebel against
obedience to their masters and kill their masters

(mawali); a group of
heretics (ahl al-bida) will be transformed until they become monkeys
and pigs; slaves will conquer the land of their masters; a cry (will
come) from the sky (in such a way) that all the people will hear it in
their own languages; a face and a chest will appear in the sky before
the people in the centre of the sun; the dead will arise from their
graves so that they will return to the world and they

will recognize one
another and visit one another; that will come to an end with twenty-
four continous rainstorms and the land will be revived by them after
being dead and it will recognize its blessings; after that every disease
will be taken away from those of the Shia of the Mahdi, peace be on
him, who believe in the truth; at that time they will know of his
appearance in Mecca and they will go to him to support him.

(These signs) are as the reports have mentioned. Among the total of
these events are some which are bound (to happen) and other which
are conditional. God knows best what will take place. We have only
mentioned them on the basis of what is recounted in basic sources of
tradition (usul) because of their inclusion in traditions which have
been handed down. From God we seek help and Him do we ask for
success...' etc etc etc...

http://al-islam.org/masoom/bios/12thimam.html

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