[Excellence]

mes·si·an·ic : relating to or having the qualities of a messiah : supporting a social, political, or religious cause or set of beliefs with great enthusiasm and energy

Its use can be more generic and appropriate in some cases.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

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[Ben Ficklin]

"Its use can be more generic"

In this case the use of the words messianic and apocalyptic have nothing to do with their actual meaning.

Their use is designed to depict Iran and Iran's leaders as irrational.

Under a Realist or Pragmatic foreign policy, all national leaders are expected/anticipated to act in a way that that benefits the nation.

From a Realist point of view, Iran with a single nuke warhead, or 10 warheads, or even more warheads would not use these against Israel because Israel has hundreds of warheads and the US has over 5000 warheads.

And there is a very similar situation on delivery systems.

So, a rational minded or pragmatic leader of Iran would not even consider attacking Israel or the US because the retaliation would dwarf the attack.

But if you can depict the man to be irrational, messianic, and apocalyptic, it would imply that if he can get his hands on two warheads and two delivery systems, then he would irrationally and immediately attack both the US and Israel.

And this provides the justification for a preemptive attack on Iran.